"Shortcomings" a witty, culturally specific anti-romantic comedy

Shortcomings (2023)

Making one of your three co-leads flawed and pretty unlikable isn’t so much a shortcoming as it is a refreshing reality check. That’s exactly what “Fresh Off the Boat” actor Randall Park goes for—and succeeds—in his directorial debut, “Shortcomings,” a modest if witty and perceptive anti-romantic comedy set in the Bay Area (and then New York City). 

Ben Tanaka (Justin H. Min) is a bitter cinephile who’s been a manager of an arthouse movie theater in Berkeley, California. For six years, he’s been dating Miko Hayashi (Ally Maki), a passionate organizer for the Pacific Asian Film Festival who tries tolerating Ben’s judgmental film snobbery. At the premiere of a glossy studio movie (a very amusing parody of a “Crazy Rich Asians” rip-off), Ben is honest to a fault, saying that representation doesn’t always matter. Ben and Mike soon drift apart, especially when she discovers his laptop open to porn revolving around Ben’s obvious preference (blonde, white women) and catches him talking to a new employee, a blonde punk performance artist named Autumn (Tavi Gevinson). Ben and Miko go at it, disagreeing about anything and everything, until she accepts an internship in New York City for three months — and she’s going alone. Every pot has a lid, and Ben and Miko just don’t match.

Working from a script by Adrian Tomine who adapts his own 2007 graphic novel and directed with indie-style simplicity by Park, “Shortcomings” takes a mirror up to the worst tendencies in Woody Allen surrogates, as well as cultural assimilation and representation in movies. It also busts down Asian-American stereotypes as much as “Joy Ride.” Ben is such a pill, and very much a Woody Allen-type figure, and the film knows it. Often an annoying, holier-than-thou know-it-all, he even attracts the attention of Sasha (Debby Ryan), who’s completely his type, until they’re time together is short-lived. The film doesn’t completely punish Ben, nor does it let him off the hook (thankfully). Read the full review at GuyAtTheMovies.com

Grade: B

Sony Pictures Classics released "Shortcomings" (92 min.) in theaters on August 4, 2023.