“Be With Me” marks the directorial debut of artist and production designer Hwarng Wern-ying, a long-time collaborator of Hou Hsiao-hsien (The Assassin, Flowers of Shanghai). Hou serves as executive producer here as Hwarng presents a slow and sensitive yet markedly uneven character study.
Be With Me is screening at New York Asian Film Festival
Faye (Ariel Lin), an experienced production designer, takes on a passion project that allows her to explore her family’s heritage. However, her father’s illness, the return of an old flame, and a struggle to find work-life balance lead her to ponder what she truly wants. This period of reflection leaves her thinking about the strife endured by her grandfather, Nikko (Vic Chou), who battled to make his way in post-war Taiwan.
One wonders whether there’s a touch of the autobiographical in Hwarng’s film, with production designer Faye serving as a stand-in of sorts for the director. She’s a strong-headed woman, clear in her artistic vision and passionate about doing things properly, even if it means putting her foot down once in a while. Off set, though, Faye is torn, unsure of whether to return to her home city of Chiayi to care for her ailing parents and conflicted in her feelings for both the smug property magnate Mr Yu (Ethan Juan) and the brooding architect Chun Shan (also played by Vic Chou).
We cut between Faye’s struggles in the present and her grandfather’s trials in the past, the latter subtlety exploring the realities of Taiwan under Japanese rule and the immediate post-war years. We drift between occupation-time sequences, presented in stark black and white, to scenes set in the 1980s where gentlemen gather in smoky rooms, a young Faye in company. These flashbacks give us a clear impression of Faye’s grandfather, whom she remembers fondly and holds in high regard, and whose legacy plays a significant role in her own development. This cross-generational story is where the narrative thrives as we grow attached to Faye’s history and come to better understand her wants and needs – the somewhat open-ended conclusion to her arc compliments this element of the plot.
However, bogging down our trips to Taiwan’s relatively recent past are detours to a half-baked romance subplot that is never more than an intrusive slog. We spend great swathes of the film watching Faye wander with either Mr Yu or Chun Shan, as both men court her in their own way. There’s very little to this frivolous love triangle, which feels very tacked on and is a clear thematic departure from the rest of the film. Just as some momentum starts to be gained with the grandfather plot, we’re thrust into this laborious romantic story. Again, given where Faye ends up at the end of it all, these throwaway love affairs feel especially useless and are far from engaging.
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Another of the film’s pitfalls is purely how long things take to get going. We meander with Faye for quite some time as we’re introduced to the various facets of her life but are given no real impetus to invest in them. This is more the result of several long, flatly shot sequences in which Faye and a string of secondary characters, namely the love interests, prattle on with no real purpose, save a couple of key moments here and there. Such narrative pacing would hardly be an issue, were the film not over two hours in length. As it stands, there’s a little too much aimless plodding that’s presented in a visually mundane manner.
“Be With Me” presents a concoction of narrative ideas, with none really reaching their full potential. It’s a mish-mash of romance, historical and cultural deep dives, and familial ties, but a lack of focus means no one element pushes through to leave an impact. Aside from a strong lead performance from Ariel Lin and unsurprisingly impressive production design where the period sequences are concerned, Hwarng’s directorial debut is less than the sum of its parts, feeling notably incomplete, save a handful of affecting moments.
