Shortcomings

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.

I was interested enough to finish the movie and that says something but I wouldn't watch it again. The movie is about a few friends living in Berkley who are essentially all struggling. Ben Tenaka, his gay female friend Alice, and his girlfriend, Miko. Ben is a first class man boy jerk. Exhibit A in what is wrong with men today and why women are giving up on love and marriage. Ben is controlling, unfaithful, negative, a racist and a hypocrite. And shockingly his career and money prospects are poor, only being the manager of a small cinema.

We watch him as he drives off everyone in life with his toxic masculinity and I guess... are supposed to root for him in the end, that he will change. But the movie gives us no hint that is going to happen? For me the best part was his girlfriend telling him off... after leaving him. Though, he is unsupportive, sarcastic, soul crushing and unpleasant, when she tries to get away and claims to be doing an internship in New York, to let him down gently, after he messes around, confronts her for being unfaithful. Stunning but typical today. But confused as to why anyone would want to see a story about this.

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.

Ok. I overrated it. It's not that something worth a 10/10. But I really enjoyed watching it. It reminds me when I'm young. When I don't know how to appreciate what I have. Keep chasing the feelings like trophy collection. Obsessed with one relationship. Biased. Sometimes frustrated. All of these are actually called growing up. It's a period of time, while you learn how to fight, how to let go and move on. Learn how to live with it en enjoy the moment. Learn how to appreciate and respect. Park, I think I got what you trying to say.

There are several times in the movie people used the term of "what age is he living in". I think that was a key of explaining some times we are deeply impacted by the ideals that we were educated or lectured during our childhood. One day when you wake up and start to think and selectively review these things we were taught, that's called maturity.

That's what this movie made me think of. Kinda deep. Again, I really enjoyed it.

Shortcomings is a very well made and acted slice of life type of movie. It's a comedy with full of heart. I love this flick. The directorial debut of Randall Park (who does a cameo) is an assured work. Must watch whether you're of Asian descent or not because there are many things relatable here, especially for those who've lived the single life and all its entanglements, or if they're still in the midst of their younger version.

It depicts many relatable themes like struggles, self doubt, finding love, heartache, friendship, family - - all with the brevity and lightness that's just right that it doesn't go too deep and depressing and it isn't too over the top funny.

The lead Ben (Justin Min) is someone you'd either relate to or know someone like that. Seems shallow, a bit of a prick, and still wandering about life. His good friend Alice is a lesbian (Sherry Cola) who's also living her best life (sort of); she even asks him to pretend to be her bf to placate her conservative Korean parents. (source of good comedy; it was also in one of the trailers so this isn't a spoiler). Sherry steals the show and provides great friendship chemistry with Justin. It's also a pretty funny movie at the right doses. Love to see Sonoya Mizuno (La La Land and Craxy

Wonderful job by Randall Park and the cast and crew. I highly recommend this.

Plus it's funny!