Shortcomings opens with a direct slap at the hugely popular Crazy Rich Asians. In a film within the film, we see a haughty white hotel clerk deny a chic Asian woman the right to book the hotel’s penthouse suite. The woman consults with her suave, tuxedoed companion, who makes a call, and she soon informs the clerk that the hotel has been bought, and he basically works for her now. The clerk grovels, chastened.
Next, we see the audience at the screening — attendees at an Asian American film festival — erupting into raucous cheers. But our hero, Ben (Justin H. Min), stays in his seat and grumbles.
The scene in the fictional movie (which alludes to a twist in Crazy Rich Asians) clearly grates upon Ben’s sensibilities. Driving home with his girlfriend Miko, he derides the movie’s “capitalistic fantasy of vindication through wealth.” His negativity irritates Miko.
That gives you a sense of what Shortcomings is all about. The directorial debut of actor and comedian Randall Park (Fresh off the Boat), it’s the pretty winning story of three young people in Berkeley who navigate the waters of life, and who like to talk — a lot — about Asian American identity.
Shortcomings is based on a much-loved graphic novel by Adrian Tomine, who also wrote the screenplay. Tomine is known for using autobiographical elements in his work.
Ben, like Tomine, is Japanese American. So is Mika. Ben manages an arthouse theater, spending time holed up in his office — leaving the popcorn and the serving of the public to his movie-nerd co-workers. Things are rocky with Mika, but he has a somewhat sympathetic ear in his friend Alice (the excellent Sherry Cola, who also co-starred in this summer’s Joy Ride). Alice is a lesbian and embraces life much more than Ben, though she hasn’t managed to tell her parents she’s gay.
When Alice recruits Ben to pose as her boyfriend for her parents, she has one other demand: He must pretend to be Korean. Alice’s Korean American family members despise Japanese people; this issue leads to a memorable exchange where Ben and Alice argue about who suffered the most in World War II: Koreans brutalized by Japan or Japanese Americans interned by the U.S. government. It’s not a conversation you’ll hear in any other movie.
When Mika leaves for New York, ostensibly for a short break, it affords Ben the chance to explore his feelings. It turns out, as stereotypical as it might be, he’s really attracted to blond white ladies. (There’s discussion about whether this reflects self-loathing or cultural programming.) He tries his luck with a new employee at the theater (Tavi Gevinson), a white avant-garde artist who takes Polaroids of her pee.
At this point you may be getting the sense that Ben is not a very sympathetic character. He definitely isn’t, though he’s probably not meant to be. Tomine and Park are not looking to tell a sappy tale about a hipster with a heart of gold.
A little window into Ben’s soul comes from the movies he watches at home. One is François Truffaut’s monumental The 400 Blows (1959), a coming-of-age story about a teen beaten down by France’s educational and juvenile justice systems. The other is Ohayo, also called Good Morning (1959), a comedy by the great Yasujirō Ozu, a coming-of-age story about two boys who are angry that adults are too busy with work and gossip to buy the kids a TV.
Maybe Shortcomings could be seen as a coming-of-age tale about a grumpy 30-year-old film buff who doesn’t love life but wants to understand it. If that — along with novel humor, appealing actors and some interesting conversations about Asian American identity — appeals to you, then Shortcomings may check the box of watchability for you. If not, there’s always Crazy Rich Asians.
