A brain-dead man, or Paralyzed Guy (as identified in the credits; played by Lee) is abused by his mother and cared for by his family's maid (Chen).

[4] Upon Homeless Guy's recovery, he begins sneaking out at night where he has sexual encounters with an older woman and the family maid, for whom he is developing feelings.

At this point, it ceases to be a distanced observer and instead, focuses on Rawang's and Homeless Guy's faces, displaying anger and guilt.

The film ends with a "dream" shot where the three lovers, the family maid, Homeless Guy and Rawang, share the same mattress and they descend down the screen.

[2] I Don't Want to Sleep Alone was among several films commissioned by Peter Sellars' New Crowned Hope Festival in Vienna in 2006, to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the birth of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

The website's critical consensus reads, "With little dialogue, Tsai Ming-liang takes the viewer through a powerful journey of loneliness and longing".

[9] Writing for The New Yorker, Richard Brody praises Tsai's capacity to show empathy for his characters: "this record of grinding frustration and fleeting tenderness, composed mainly of static long takes, plays out in a deadened, polyglot, pan-urban landscape of globalization's unfulfilled promise—instead of a world brought together".