Shortcomings lauds itself as a smart movie about a young filmmaker who’s finding out more about where he isn’t making it in his life. However, the movie isn’t quite as self-aware as the boilerplate would have you believe. Between the decent acting is a major flaw – a protagonist who not only doesn’t see how he’s causing the issues in his life but doesn’t make a single effort to fix them for those around him who love him. And we won’t even go into the fact that Ben isn’t a struggling filmmaker at all, just a film school dropout with grandiose ideas of himself.
Instead, Ben is a guy that every woman has met at least once in her life. Starts out nice, but once you get to know them ends up tearing down everything you love. It starts small with comments about a film his girlfriend made, and then later about his coworker’s art installation choice, and later even to his best friend’s relationship. Ben seems to think his opinion is the only one that matters, and he isn’t willing to change his scope or world view in order to not hurt those in his life. Is this really a shortcoming? Or is it rather a personality type or behavior that he continues despite being checked over and over again?
So what’s the big deal? The whole movie focuses on Ben and what he’s doing wrong in his life and how it’s affecting him and the people around him. Sure, that’s the premise. But what it also highlights is his self-centric mindset that is bordering on narcissism and the real damage that can do. His ex-girlfriend leaves to start over, and while they’re on a break, he calls her constantly leaving aggressive messages. He eventually follows her to New York to find that she has moved on and gets aggressive with the new guy in her life. All the while he not only had two relationships while she was gone, but continually used aggressive, controlling, and demeaning language at her. Every issue in Ben’s life is someone else’s fault. And when it is pointed out to him that he’s causing it, he doesn’t make any effort to correct or fix them – instead, it’s played off as something that is just what he does.
It’s a damaging point of view in many relationships and even dangerous to see it normalized. While the women surrounding Ben continue to push away and start their own lives away from his toxic behavior, he continues to fight every windmill but never stops to actually reflect on the cause of his issues. The movie even ends on a note where he’s getting a message from Alice giving him one more encouraging message on what and how he can change. And while it is almost hopeful that Ben could make a change, it’s been shown over and over again that he won’t. Instead, he’ll just move on to another woman he finds attractive to tear down what passion she has and enjoys.
Shortcomings hits theaters everywhere this weekend, and while the movie seemed to have some potential, it falls short itself.
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About Shortcomings:
Ben, a struggling filmmaker, lives in Berkeley, California, with his girlfriend, Miko, who works for a local Asian American film festival. When he’s not managing an arthouse movie theater as his day job, Ben spends his time obsessing over unavailable blonde women, watching Criterion Collection DVDs, and eating in diners with his best friend Alice, a queer grad student with a serial dating habit. When Miko moves to New York for an internship, Ben is left to his own devices, and begins to explore what he thinks he might want.
Starring Justin H. Min, Sherry Cola, Ally Maki, Debby Ryan, Tavi Gevinson, Sonoya Mizuno, Jacob Batalon, and Timothy Simons.
Directed by Randall Park.