'Shortcomings' review: Messy, rock-bottom characters make Randall Park's comedy
'Shortcomings' review: Messy, rock-bottom characters make Randall Park's comedy
Shortcomings opens with a film in a movie. We meet Mrs. Wong (Everything Everywhere All At Once's Stephanie Hsu), a lady in a flowery yellow robe, just as her software for a penthouse condo will get rejected. Seconds later, her suit-wearing husband (M3GAN's Ronny Chieng) buys the complete building, prompting the 2 to kiss passionately in the elevator as much as their new luxury house. Fireworks erupt, fairy tale music swells, and a title card proclaims that this is "just the start..."
Minimize to an viewers of rapturous viewers at the East Bay Asian American Film Pageant. Everyone leaps to offer a standing ovation besides one disdainful man. That man is Ben Tanaka (Justin H. Min), and he can be our misanthropic guide by means of Randall Park's hilarious function directorial debut, based mostly on the graphic novel by Adrian Tomine.
While everyone around Ben gushes concerning the film, acknowledging that it is "somewhat shiny, nevertheless it's ours," he can solely muster up the weak assertion that it was "quite an event." As he later tells his girlfriend and pageant organizer Miko (Ally Maki), he could not stand the "garish, mainstream" romantic comedy they only sat via, which, yes, bears a pointed resemblance to Loopy Rich Asians. Is it actually a win for Asian American illustration if this is the film the group chooses to have fun?
Ben — a struggling filmmaker himself in addition to a licensed movie bro — would much fairly Asian characters in films have flaws, like himself and everyone he knows. It's kind of of a meta ask, as Shortcomings, itself an "occasion" of Asian American illustration, is all too joyful to oblige. Its characters are messy, egocentric, and sometimes simply inches away from hitting all-time low, and none are more so than Ben. And herein lies one among Shortcomings' most intriguing tensions: Ben is so determined to evangelise about how a lot he needs to see flawed characters, however he has completely no intention of addressing his personal failings.
Shortcomings' Ben is a jerk who will not acknowledge his flaws — and you may't look away.
In Shortcomings' opening minutes, Park and Tomine, who wrote the screenplay, hit us with Ben's many, many pink flags. For one, he can't even fake to have an interest within the movie or in Miko's work at the pageant. As his and Miko's banter about illustration escalates to an all-out argument, he resorts to belittling her and calling her crazy. Later, we study that Ben has a kind, and that sort is "blonde white ladies." His unwillingness to even talk about this with Miko or understand why it'd put a pressure on her makes it crystal clear that this relationship is on the rocks, and has been for a while.
So when Miko will get an internship alternative in New York, the space between her and Ben may be just what they need. They determine they're taking a break — a time period virtually strategic in its open-endedness. When left to his own units, Ben immediately takes their separation as a cross to pursue white ladies like movie theater employee Autumn (Tavi Gevinson) and grad scholar Sasha (Debby Ryan). The results are often deeply awkward, together with feigned appreciation of overly edgy artwork and conversations about fetishism and public perceptions of interracial relationships. Shortcomings steers away from any clear resolutions on these points, content material to let the discussions converse for themselves.
However the widespread thread in all these conversations is Ben, who stays a messy, typically hypocritical lead whether or not he is trying an ill-advised hookup or hanging out together with his greatest good friend Alice (Joy Ride's Sherry Cola). While he's definitely not a "likable" major character, you just cannot look away from him. Min's portrayal of Ben's personal model of assholery is proof of Shortcomings' hyper-specific characterization, one thing we see in Alice as properly. And as much as we might disagree with these characters' actions, we immediately recognize simply how actual they are, and in that means, we're capable of root for them to raised themselves.
After a shaky start, Shortcomings finds its approach.
Shortcomings takes a number of scenes to solidify its rhythm and tone, however as soon as it does, you're in for a slice-of-life comedy that prefers understated, wince-worthy jokes to out-there giggle riots. For probably the most part, Tomine's dialogue could be very natural, serving to solidify the movie's lived-in really feel. There isn't any query that Shortcomings' greatest scenes are between Ben and Alice: Min and Cola volley dialogue in such a simple approach that there isn't any doubt these are two kindred spirits. Shortcomings especially picks up momentum within the third act, when an sudden quest unites them in strange circumstances.
The film's opening means that Miko is the third level in Shortcomings' trio of principal characters, but unfortunately, she does not get the identical remedy or degree of specificity as Ben or Alice. A part of that is by design: She's off in New York for a lot of the movie, whereas the action stays in the Bay Space. Yet in her absence, she becomes a clean canvas for Ben's own anxieties and worry of change, and any later argument from her, delivered passionately by Maki, reads extra as a life lesson for Ben.
Regardless of this weak spot in characterization, Shortcomings remains an otherwise robust function directorial debut for Park. If he have been to observe Shortcomings, Ben might not essentially like what it has to say about him. Nevertheless, he would not be capable of deny that its characters have fascinating flaws — and that winds up being the movie's superpower.
Shortcomings is now streaming on Netflix.
UPDATE: Aug. 4, 2023, 9:47 a.m. EDT Shortcomings was reviewed out of the Tribeca Movie Pageant on June 11, 2023.
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