Shortcomings

Name: Shortcomings
Genre: Drama, Comedy, Romance
Released: August 4, 2023
Duration: 92 min
Rating: 67
Cast: Ally Maki, Debby Ryan, Jacob Batalon, Justin H. Min, Scott Seiss

2023

METASCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 24 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Mixed or average reviews based on 4 Ratings

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Shortcomings

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Movie Details & Credits

Sony Pictures Classics | Release Date: August 4, 2023 | Not Rated

Starring: Ally Maki, Debby Ryan, Jacob Batalon, Justin H. Min, Scott Seiss, Sherry Cola, Sonoya Mizuno, Tavi Gevinson, Theo Iyer, Timothy Simons

Summary: Ben (Justin H. Min), a struggling filmmaker, lives in Berkeley, California, with his girlfriend, Miko (Ally Maki), 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 inBen (Justin H. Min), a struggling filmmaker, lives in Berkeley, California, with his girlfriend, Miko (Ally Maki), 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 (Sherry Cola), 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.… Expand

Director: Randall Park

Genre(s): Drama, Comedy, Romance

Rating: Not Rated

Runtime: 92 min

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Critic Reviews

The Playlist Poulomi Das

Jan 28, 2023

Park proves to be a director with style and wit to spare, staging revelatory sequences that walk the narrow line between comedy and provocation. Read full review

David Fear

Aug 3, 2023

How much self-inquiry Park himself has put into Shortcomings is pure speculation, but you can’t deny he’s put his soul into bringing his vision of a movie that explores everyday identity politics — but isn’t just about identity politics — to life. Read full review

RogerEbert.com Robert Daniels

Aug 4, 2023

Shortcomings is a wickedly funny, absorbing character study and solo feature directorial debut by actor Randall Park (“Fresh off the Boat”). In the hands of Park, Adrian Tomine's graphic novel (adapted here by Tomine) finds cutting new dimensions in the miserabilism of an unabashed assh*le. Read full review

Jesse Hassenger

Jan 30, 2023

It’s a piercing portrayal of culturally specific nerd rage in Tomine’s comics; on film, it’s a little talky, and could’ve used more Ghost World-style moments of caricature, like that savaging of Crazy Rich Asians at the opening. But while Shortcomings doesn’t turn Ben into a misanthropic hero or excuse his often-terrible behavior, it does stick to the ethos he espouses early in the picture: This is a movie full of people who are flawed, and real. Read full review

Trace Sauveur

Aug 2, 2023

All of these characters’ supposed “shortcomings” are more often relationship-ending defects. Ironically, this steadfast depiction of noxious people is what makes the movie appealing. Read full review

Justin Chang

Aug 4, 2023

As a director, Park stages his scenes with an unadorned flatness that strives to approximate the humdrum workaday poetry of Tomine’s comic-book frames but sometimes allows too much dead air to coalesce around the jokes and arguments. Read full review

Jordan Mintzer

Jan 28, 2023

It’s more like the kind of standard Sundance-bound dramedy we’ve seen lots of times before, albeit with a charming cast and some sharp bits of commentary on race, identity and gender that come courtesy of screenwriter Adrian Tomine, who adapted his 2007 graphic novel of the same title. Read full review

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