SHORTCOMINGS - Mark Reviews Movies

Shortcomings, Sony Pictures Classics

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Review by Mark Dujsik | August 3, 2023

Everyone has probably known someone like the protagonist of Shortcomings. Some of us might have been—or might still be—somebody like Ben (Justin H. Min), a guy in his 20s whose big dreams seem to amount only to that and who takes out that frustration on everyone around him. He's not a nice guy, although Ben has convinced himself that he is, and not particularly pleasant company, even if he's certain everyone would benefit from having him around, but the guy is recognizable and believable.

Sometimes, that's enough of a reason to follow an unlikeable main character. Thankfully, we only have to do so for 90 minutes, and Ben spends the last 20 minutes or so realizing just how awful he has been over the course of previous 70. Give the man some credit for that. Too many like him never realize it.

The film is an adaptation of Adiran Tomine's graphic novel, written the creator himself and directed by the actor Randall Park. Park is a very funny and nuanced comedic performer, so it's little surprise that his directorial debut would be filled with complicated, flawed characters and take its time examining the degree of those complications and flaws.

It's also a comedy, of course, and one that does see these characters as the primary source of the observant, often prickly humor at the core of its story. Sure, there's a stretch when that story becomes more about a slightly elaborate scheme to figure out what Ben's current girlfriend or ex-girlfriend has been up to during her time in New York City, but the sequence is so uncomfortable that we're always aware it could only come from the immature, insecure mind of our protagonist. Even when the film becomes more of a situational comedy, the situations are based in the main character's particular set of complexities and foibles.

When we first meet Ben, he's as happy as he can be at this moment in his life, which is to say that he probably should be a lot more content than he actually he is. He has an intelligent, self-confident, and pretty girlfriend in Miko (Ally Maki), who recently has become involved in politics and film. In theory, the couple, living together in Berkeley, should share a lot in a common, since Ben once was on track to receiving a post-graduate degree in film, until he decided that setting out on his own might be the better path. His career stopped short, while his ambitions more or less came to an end, with his first disastrous, debt-accumulating production, and it's tough to blame the guy for being so bitter about it.

Of some note here—if only because the opening scene draws attention to the fact—is that our collection of central characters are all of Asian descent. Ben and Miko both come from multi-generational immigrants from Japan, and Ben's best friend and constant confidant Alice (Sherry Cola) comes from a Chinese family.

The story opens with Ben and Miko attending the premiere of a romantic comedy at an Asian-American film festival, and our guy can't help but criticize the thing for being so shallow and glossy—while also decrying the audience for adoring it, simply because the movie is such a mainstream a piece of racial/ethnic representation on screen. He'd much rather see something with figures akin to real people being made and championed, and one can't help but to feel both Tomine and Park reaching out to declare that their film is the answer to Ben's desire.

In a way, they've accomplished that goal, because Ben, Alice, and Miko do feel authentic, while their story is no cookie-cutter romance and opens up the possibility of discussing matters such as racial/ethnic politics, stereotypes, and culture in an easy, natural way. There's one amusing scene in which Alice, who hasn't told her family that she's gay, enlists Ben to pretend to be her boyfriend at a cousin's wedding. He also has to make sure that he doesn't give away his Japanese heritage, since her Chinese grandfather remembers World War II. Park's comedic sensibilities and timing are strong enough to know that the grandfather's condemning stare at Ben is enough of a joke and also the correct note on which to conclude that encounter. There are a few scenes here that end right on the punch line, because anything else would detract from the momentum.

Anyway, the story has Ben and Miko's relationship collapsing—mainly because of him, even if he isn't aware of it. She takes a three-month internship in New York, leaving Ben either to figure out his problems or to live it up as a bachelor.

He chooses the latter, naturally, and tries to start a couple of flings or relationships with Autumn (Tavi Gevinson), a new employee at the little movie theater he manages, and Sasha (Debby Ryan), who recently broke up with a woman. To be sure, Ben has a type—young, white women with blonde hair. How his escapades define him—especially when he does go to New York, with the façade of visiting a recently transplanted Alice but really to find Miko—and reveal his assorted prejudices about other people becomes the whole point.

The film doesn't let Ben off easy just because of his heritage, his unfortunate back story, or his belief that everything and everyone are against him. That lends Shortcomings a decent amount of wisdom, as it picks apart its protagonist, and a sharp sense of humor about the guy—and a bit more than that, too.

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