“Shortcomings” begins with a magic trick of a scene: we see an emotional Asian American audience applaud when the end credits of a film (modeled clearly on “Crazy Rich Asians”) start rolling at an Asian American film festival. Outside the screening, more Asian Americans celebrate the significance of the moment — an Asian American-led romantic comedy becoming a blockbuster hit. Ben (Justin H. Min), a struggling filmmaker and a born contrarian, seems appalled by the fuss around what he claims is a “garish mainstream rom-com that glorifies a capitalistic fantasy.” His girlfriend Miko (Ally Maki), who works for the festival, doesn’t agree, arguing that the film is a “game-changer” because its success will open the floodgates for more “cool or artsy or whatever” Asian American films to be greenlit in Hollywood.
This isn’t a throwaway sequence, but rather a moment that playfully encapsulates the ambitions of “Shortcomings.” Through the contrasting reactions of both his leads, debut feature director Randall Park (“Fresh Off The Boat,” “Always Be My Maybe”) digs at two things: how limiting the politics of representation can sometimes be and that only films depicting a specific kind of Asian American experience will continue to be celebrated, effectively shrinking the possibilities for films that don’t conform. On the other hand, the reverse is true as well — sometimes, a big-budget, glossy blockbuster is all that’s needed to create an appetite for films that aim to capture the multiplicity of the Asian American experience. The very existence of “Shortcomings,” an aimless, self-reflective coming-of-age comedy, for instance, is a direct acknowledgment of the achievements of “Crazy Rich Asians.”
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Based on Adrian Tomine’s eponymous 2007 graphic novel and adapted for the screen by Tomine himself (the author modernizes the screenplay to resemble current millennial concerns and references), “Shortcomings” is an accomplished debut, a profoundly perceptive movie that challenges the status-quo in small, rewarding ways. This isn’t a film that exists only to reimagine a standard millennial comedy with an Asian American makeover — although that is certainly one part of it (the three leads eat at diners and explore New York City on foot just like the cast of “Girls” and “How I Met Your Mother”; one climactic scene sees Park frame Min running down the street exactly like Greta Gerwig from “Frances Ha”). Instead, “Shortcomings” remains most invested in becoming the coming-of-age story that would be impossible to imagine without an Asian American cast.
Divided into chapters just like the book, “Shortcomings” follows the misanthropic and self-absorbed Ben as he contends with the monotony of his dead-end life in Berkeley, where he works at a failing local theater and lives with Miko in a tastefully manicured apartment owned by her father. When the film opens, the couple’s relationship seems to be at a standstill already, so it doesn’t come as a surprise that Miko suggests they take some time off as she prepares to head to New York for a three-month internship. On the heels of their presumed breakup, Ben starts to play the field, exclusively getting involved with white women while vehemently denying to Alice, his kooky queer best friend (a scene-stealing Sherry Cola) that he might nurse a fetish for white women. Yet, when his dating escapades take disastrously comic turns, Ben finds himself craving the companionship that Miko, who has cut contact with him since moving to New York, brought to his life.
The actor-turned-director displays a rewarding knack for bringing alive the dizzying excitement and angst of adulthood — “Shortcomings” is at its most self-aware and delightful when Park paints a portrait of Ben’s singlehood. He first goes for Autumn (Tavi Gevinson), the attractive new hire at the theater who has a wall in her apartment dedicated to an art project that involves her taking daily photographs of her toilet. Despite himself, Ben plays along with Autumn in the hopes of getting some action. But when she comically rejects him, Ben moves on to dating the bisexual Sasha (a wonderfully cast Debby Ryan) until she dumps him for her ex-girlfriend.
Park proves to be a director with style and wit to spare, staging revelatory sequences that walk the narrow line between comedy and provocation. The film’s breezy aesthetic is bolstered by its quick-witted dialogue, edgy soundtrack, and Santiago Gonzalez’s colorful, easy-on-the-eye lensing, affording the charming screenplay enough room to reveal pointed and playful insights into modern dating mores as if already being in on the joke. Even the way Park employs social commentary — as a vehicle for comedy — makes for memorable set-pieces. It’s visible in his indictment of the hypocrisy of straight men, prone to never looking inward. In Ben’s case, issues of race, identity politics, and sexual fluidity flare up when things go south, even though everyone around him keeps telling him that his problem might just be himself.
For one, Ben isn’t the most pleasant person to be around, prone to employing naive idealism to the practicalities of life. If anything, it leaves him with a misguided superiority complex (Ben is the kind of film nerd who gives cinephilia a bad rep) that renders him incapable of caring about the people who love him the most. Ben is the kind of guy who believes in doing something perfectly or then, not doing it at all. Except, this pursuit of perfection also makes him resistant to any kind of personal growth. For instance, even though he regularly consumes the cinema of Yasujirō Ozu, François Truffaut, and Eric Rohmer, Ben rarely considers writing a script himself and chooses instead to stick to a job that contributes to his financial ruin.
Put simply, Ben’s bitterness is its own undoing, making him a complicated character to root for. Still, the fact that we end up casting a sympathetic eye toward Ben relies on Park’s ingenious casting and the terrific ensemble turns. Min’s (“After Yang”) physical turn locates a deep sadness about Ben that humanizes him to us. Similarly, Park doesn’t paint Miko in a villainous shade even when she decamps to New York for a new arm candy (Timothy Simons turning in a comically exaggerated cameo) and leaves Min hanging. That both leads are allowed room to be hugely selfish and self-absorbed without being judged for their choices lends the film an empathetic edge, making its characters feel all the more naturalistic.
There’s also something about Park’s lightness of touch as a director especially when the film contends with thorny themes of gender politics that makes “Shortcomings” so satisfying. If its many subversions might not come across as instantly eventful, it’s because the film commits to an understated tone and unhurried approach. It’s a curious choice to take for a romantic-comedy but to Park’s credit, the gamble suits the point he is trying to make. There can be more than one kind of Asian American love story, coming-of-age story, and friendship story, and more than one kind of Asian American lead. In that, “Shortcomings” turns out to be the kind of film that feels effortless in its being, as if we’re not watching a film but witnessing two people realize that they’re at a transitional point in their lives from across the street. The film may not yell it from the rooftops but its pleasures do run deep. [A-]
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