Shortcomings: Portrait of An Asian-American Anti-Hero with Girl Trouble
By Liam Lacey
Rating: B+
Wryly funny, and just a little more complicated than its familiar indie film tropes suggest, the dramedy Shortcomings marks the directorial debut of comic actor Randall Park (Fresh of the Boat, Blockbuster, The Interview).
The script is by Adrian Tomine, adapted from his acclaimed 2007 graphic novel about Ben, a 30-ish Japanese American slacker and aspiring filmmaker, struggling with issues of racial identity, the complications of dating, and trying to find his place in the world.
Shortcomings opens in a cinema at a Berkeley Asian American film festival, where a rapt audience is watching the conclusion of a glossy movie with a distinct similarity to the 2018 rom-com bauble, Crazy Rich Asians, a film hailed as a breakthrough for Asian onscreen representation.
The audience cheers at the closing credits, except for Ben (Justin H. Min), who looks like he’d rather be anywhere else. Ben’s live-in girlfriend Miko (Ally Maki) is one of the organizers of the event. When she introduces him to the director, the best Ben can mutter by way of a compliment is, “It’s… quite the event.”
On the way home, they argue. Miko claims the film will open the door for other Asian-American filmmakers. Ben counters that it’s a “garish mainstream rom-com that glorifies a capitalistic fantasy.” (Ben should have been a film critic.)
The argument continues at their surprisingly luxurious apartment (Miko’s dad pays the rent), and we soon understand the tensions between them run deeper than their tastes in movies. Ben is disdainful of anything mainstream; Miko snaps back that he isn’t doing much to offer an alternative.
He works as manager of a failing art-house cinema, overseeing two movie geek employees (Scott Seiss and Jacob Batalon). By day, instead of making films, he rewatches favourite DVDs (Ozu, Truffault, Cassavetes). But movies aren’t the only thing he dreams about.
It’s a running joke about his employees that Ben likes blondes. When fair-haired, wannabe punk performance artist Autumn (Tavi Gevinson) applies for a job, Ben promptly hires her. When Miko asks him why he didn’t introduce the new employee to her when she dropped in to see him, he fudges a response. Subsequently, she confronts him about the porn she found on his laptop, not because he watched porn but because all the women in his favourite scenes are white.
Soon after that spat, Miko announces she has landed a three-month intern job at the Asian-American Independent Film Institute in New York. Initially, Ben feels sorry for himself but soon sees an opportunity to play the field. He promptly texts Autumn for a date, though that fizzles out.
Ben has just one friend, a brassy, bed-hopping lesbian grad student named Alice (Sherry Cola). Through her, he meets the young but self-possessed bisexual Sasha, another blonde, who seems to like him. But she breaks up with him after a few dates when an old lover comes calling. Also, she’s not that comfortable with his somewhat creepy pride in showing off his blonde girlfriend.
To add to Ben’s problems, his cinema is about to close down. Meanwhile, Miko, still in New York, isn’t returning his calls or texts. Alice, who has been suspended from her college, moves to New York for a fresh start; Ben accepts her invitation to visit.
In New York, he has two discoveries: First, Alice, has settled down with an elegant, new academic girlfriend, Meredith (Sonoya Mizuno), who Ben promptly offends. Secondly, he discovers that Miko has made some life changes as well. She has set up house with a very tall, very white clothing designer (Timothy Simons who plays Jonah on Veep) who shows all the signs of having a Asian fetish. But unlike Ben, he speaks Japanese. He also has a reflexive tendency to spring into karate poses when threatened.
Park doesn’t do anything fancy as a filmmaker, focusing on a series of scenes of two characters tangling with each other. What’s refreshing about Shortcomings is also what is also potentially alienating about it: Ben is such a jerk, a snob, and a misanthrope.
Read our interview with Shortcomings director Randall Park
Even when he’s funny, he oversteps on the side of rudeness. In his defence, he doesn’t seem to be able to help himself. That means that his friendship with Alice, his misfit comrade, is the only really likeable thing about him.
The scenes between Min as Ben (The Umbrella Academy, After Yang) and writer-comedian Cola as Alice (the recently released comedy Joy Ride) have the candid rapport of two imperfect people who won’t allow each other to be dishonest. (“Just because I’m a hypocrite,” explains Alice, “doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”)
True, the gay support human trope is trite, although in this case, Alice isn’t just a sidekick. She’s Ben’s primary relationship. Ben doesn’t seem to have any male friends, and with women he’s attracted to, he’s either competitive or controlling and blind to their signals.
What that means is, ultimately, Shortcomings is more buddy movie than rom-com, the kind that doesn’t resolve into a happy ending, but leaves the characters with lots of room to grow.
Shortcomings. Directed by Randall Park. Written by Adrian Tomine. Starring Justin H. Min, Sherry Cola, Ally Maki, Debby Ryan, Tavis Gevinson, Sonoya Mizuno, Jacob Batalon and Timothy Simons. In theatres August 4.