Review of Shortcomings, directed by Randall Park

On one of my many trips to New York City, I decided to finally upgrade my AMC subscription to the one that included New York. There were several times in New York where I wished I had enough out of state slots to see something in NYC, as I had nothing to do, so I was basically biting the bullet here.

Immediately after I did that, I was in town for Shortcomings to be in theaters. And trust me, I did think about seeing this film quite a few times. It was tempting after reading the synopsis.

But I never saw it in New York because it was always at inconvenient times where I actually needed to be doing something, so I never saw it then. Several months later, it was added to Netflix though.

Literally the day they added this movie to Netflix I decided to sit down and watch it, as I had nothing else to do at the time. It seemed like the perfect solution to boredom, and I watched it all the way through in one go.

Let’s get into the review!

Ben, a movie theater worker, goes through cycles of rage after his girlfriend moves to NYC for an opportunity.

As seen above, our main character in this movie is Ben. A film school dropout and cinephile, he spends his days working a movie theater in Berkeley, and even lives with his girlfriend Miko. She works for a film festival dedicated towards Asian American work, although he sees her work as tedious and over the top.

We first see the cracks in their life through that, but when Ben, the manager at the theater, hires a new girl there as a ticket seller, he starts eyeing her up. Miko also finds porn on his computer and reveals she thinks he has a preference for white women (which is true).

Miko then reveals she’s moving to NYC for an internship. Ben goes to his friend Alice, a lesbian who flirts with the waitress at the diner. She gives him advice, but when Ben calls Miko, he acts like he doesn’t care about her, giving her the opportunity to say they should take a break.

Ben pursues Autumn, and attends a show she’s in for performance art. It’s incredibly weird to him, but he pretends to like it anyways. They go back to her apartment, where he tries to kiss her after making an awful joke, and she says no. Alice then takes Ben another day to a house party, where he meets a graduate student at Berkeley: Sasha.

She studies Latin America, but the two of them start dating. Alice then tells him the tea on herself: she kicks a girl, who happens to be Nina’s roommate, and got suspended from her graduate program. As Ben and Sasha start dating, Alice decides to move to NYC too.

Sasha starts noticing how Ben isn’t the greatest person, and then breaks up with him. Turns out she, too, was on a break. Her girlfriend just came back from doing research abroad, and she decided to get back together with her. Ben handles this terribly, yelling at her.

The movie theater then closes, and everyone leaves him behind—showing he wasn’t as liked at work, either. He starts spiraling, and Miko doesn’t pick up the phone when he calls. Alice tells him to come to New York, and he agrees.

Turns out Alice found a new woman while she was there: Meredith, who works at Barnard. Ben goes to find Miko at her internship, then realizes she never actually worked there. With Alice’s help, they learn she has been modeling for a designer, and is now dating him.

Ben then has a rant about how Miko is dating a white man, and how the guy must be an Asian fetishist. Meredith then shuts him down by asking about why he only has a preference for white women, and then Ben, lashing out, reveals that Alice kicked a girl. That causes another fight, and he leaves.

Ben goes to Miko, then confronts the new couple on the street. Ben then goes on his fetish rant, and then Miko calls him out for everything he’s done. She then tells him their relationship is over and that Ben is toxic.

Dejected, he goes back to Alice and Meredith, apologizing for his behavior. He decides to leave the city, and spots Miko and her new beau together. He then gets a cab and goes to the airport.

Overall Thoughts

This was an interesting movie, especially considering our protagonist is a professional douche. Considering I barely knew anything about the movie going into it, I was interested about what it had to say for sure by the end.

Lots of layered critiques going on here manifested through the character of Ben. It was painful to watch him go through his daily life, but, like I said, there’s many things to be learned from this by the end.

Go watch the film if you’re interested! I think it’s definitely worth it.

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