Shortcomings (2023)

• Year: 2023
• Released: 04 Aug 2023
• Country: United States
• Adwords: 1 nomination
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14483774/
• Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/shortcomings
• Metacritics:
• Available in: 720p, 1080p, 1080p
• Language: English
• MPA Rating: R
• Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
• Runtime: 92 min
• Writer: Adrian Tomine
• Director: Randall Park
• Cast: Justin H. Min, Sherry Cola, Ally Maki
• Keywords: new york city, cynicism, friendship, based on comic, interracial relationship, hypocrisy,

	6.7/10
	65/100

Shortcomings Storyline

Ben, a struggling filmmaker, lives in Berkeley, California, with his girlfriend, Miko, who works for a local Asian American film festival. When he’s not managing an arthouse movie theater as his day job, Ben spends his time obsessing over unavailable blonde women, watching Criterion Collection DVDs, and eating in diners with his best friend Alice, a queer grad student with a serial dating habit. When Miko moves to New York for an internship, Ben is left to his own devices, and begins to explore what he thinks he might want.

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Shortcomings Movie Reviews

A sort of character study, veiled as a romcom

Stephanie Hsu had a good cameo, you forget about it as the movie progresses but it comes up again and plays an small but enlightening and important role for what the movie’s convey. There are a lot of Asian-American movie’s coming out recently, I think EEAAO took the spotlight but I watched joy ride a few weeks ago which was great, and now Shortcomings, even though it seems like it’ll fly under the radar.

Some elements of the movie reminded me of Wes Anderson movies, with frequent pauses to divide the movie into chapters as if it were a novel. It didn’t forgo realism in favor of his orange sunset dollhouse aesthetic feel however. Something that I realized was that the movie was awfully quiet, like minimal surrounding sounds and you barely notice the scene’s background characters too. I love how Spider-Man exists here and Jacob Batalon recognizes it.

Subtitle’s would be nice but the movie is in English in almost it’s entirety. It’s not the funniest but the funny scenes did feel real. It feels like real people and above all the movies story, events and characters were believable so the moments that need to invoke emotions do that well… the cringe moments, the romantic moments, the humiliating moments, self realizing moments all felt like you were there in the moment for the characters.

I think it’s less of a romcom and more of a drama comedy, even though Ben’s relationships play a huge role I think it was a character study in the end for the character himself, self reflection and all that; so his love interest are just used as tools to that end. I liked that they each got meaningful endings too. He reminds me of Ramy from the tv show of the same name, in the sense of the second hand embarrassment, his world views and how much his decisions or what he says annoyed me because I wanted him to choose better. A man child basically.

It’s not as excitingly paced, so not one of those cinema experiences were you get to have a blast, probably a movie better watched alone. Reminds me a little of Destination Wedding too in it’s anti-romcom-ness, except this has a few more cute scenes. It did make me feel mushy inside at points but it’s still not a romance as I said. I think it gets better as it goes, I wasn’t sure at the start but I loved it by the time the movie was done.

Decent Romantic Comedy About a Man-Child

Saw this at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival

“Shortcomings” is a story about a trio of young Bay Area urbanites–Ben Tanaka, Miko Hayashi, and Alice Kim–as they navigate a range of interpersonal relationships, traversing the country in search of the ideal connection. This is Randall Park’s first debut feature and I gotta say it’s a pretty good first time directing project. Shortcomings explores about friendship, love, narcissism, and growth revolving around Asians or Asian American communities. I wasn’t fully wowed by anything from the movie but I was still able to connect with the movie.

Park is able to capture the interesting chemistry between the cast members and the modern setting with some fun humor and personalities explored. The performances from each cast members was really good and Justin H. Min does a pretty good job portraying a man child of a person. The camerawork wasn’t too special but it was good for the overall setting. The production is good and some of the dialogue was well-written and funny.

However, the story does become pretty predictable as it continues. A generic rom-com story where predictable movements were going to happen. But without Park’s charms and chemistry, it would have been like a bad hallmark movie. Despite having some good dialogue, there were some dialogue moments that felt really awkward or forced and I am not sure if that was intentional or not. If it was intentional then I can understand but if not then those dialogue moments were pretty rough. Some of the supporting characters were a little annoying. Even with my gripes, I was still able to be entertained throughout this film.

By all means, it’s a decent romantic comedy with good pacing and interesting concepts explored. I’d recommend for those who wanna have a drink or two and watch it for fun.

Rating: B-

smug is never a good look

Greetings again from the darkness. In the past twenty years, Randall Park has built an excellent acting career, likely best known as nice guy dad, husband, and restauranteur on the long-running TV series “Fresh Off the Boat”. He also had prominent roles in the mini-series “WandaVision”, “Veep”, and the Ant-Man movies. Now taking his shot as a feature film director, Mr. Park sticks closely to the Asian community, while simultaneously taking a step forward by not emphasizing generational aspects and familiar cultural tropes. He’s working from a script that Adrian Tomine adapted from his own graphic novel.

The film opens with Miko (Ally Maki, “Wrecked”) and Ben (Justin H Min, AFTER YANG) watching the end of a film festival movie. It plays as a parody of the hugely successful CRAZY RICH ASIANS (2018) and leads to contrasting reactions and an argument for Miko and Ben. Miko is the curator of the film festival and is thrilled the movie received such positive audience reactions, while Ben, a struggling indie filmmaker, is totally offput by the film’s pandering and mass appeal. We quickly realize Ben is a condescending jerk and Miko is fed up.

Ben manages a small arthouse movie theater in Berkeley and often has lunch at a local diner with his only other friend, Alice (a terrific Sherry Cola, JOY RIDE), who points out that his smugness doesn’t play well with others. Alice is gay and laughs off her tendency to ‘play the field’. Miko calls out Ben on his blonde, blue-eyed white girl fetish, and then soon after announces she is taking an internship in New York City, causing us to realize this movie is probably going to deal with Ben’s road to redemption (hopefully resulting in a worthwhile human being).

With Miko living across the country, Ben seems to be at his most comfortable with Classic Movies and solo chill. He’s a film school dropout with no filter and no sense of timing with his comments and critiques. Basically, he’s not a likable guy, and we see this in his separate pursuit of two blond, blue-eyed white girls. He hires performance artist Autumn (Tavi Gevinson) to work the ticket booth at the theater, and has no idea how to deal with her emotional swings and artistic leanings. Things are even worse with Sasha (Debby Ryan), who is coming off a breakup with her girlfriend. Despite warnings from Alice to stay clear, Ben’s pompous nature is once again exposed, leaving him all alone.

Ben’s world changes abruptly when Alice informs him she is also moving to New York and invites him to come visit. He sees this as a chance to get back together with Miko, who has quasi-ghosted him since she left. When Ben arrives, he finds Alice living with Meredith (Sonoya Mizuno, EX MACHINA) in a serious relationship, and stumbles on Miko in a situation that causes confusion, and of course, conflict. Leon (Timothy Simons, “Veep”) is a NYC fashion designer with an Asian fetish plays a key role in this segment.

The film is billed as a comedy, and while there are some funny moments, there is actually a sadness throughout … most of it related to how most everyone is searching for love while trying to avoid loneliness. During this search, we are often our own worst enemy (Ben being the prime example here). The message here is that while we are all flawed, one can only find joy once they sincerely enjoy the happiness of others. Watching Ben’s journey is not always a pleasant viewing experience, however his story is well told.

In theaters beginning August 4, 2023.