BFI London Film Festival: Exit

After losing her job as a garment worker, Ling sees her prospects dim dramatically: in her mid forties, she lives in a small, dilapidated apartment in the Taiwanese city of Kaohsiung and spends much of her time locked in arguments with her testy daughter. Her elderly mother is ailing in hospital. On one of her many visits to the ward she notices an injured man and tentatively starts to care for him. A moving portrait of Ling’s struggle with loneliness and middle age, Exit charts her developing bond with the man, the relationship reverberating with exquisite, almost erotic tenderness. Former cinematographer Chienn’s film is a triumph of understated emotion and features a magnetic central performance from Chen (one of Tsai Ming-liang’s regulars) as Ling. [Clare Stewart]

Tickets for London Film Festival screenings can be purchased through the BFI and BFI Box Office 020 7928 3232 (9.30am-8.30pm daily) or the London Film Festival website: bfi.org.uk/lff