That Ben is not the most likable of guys is not really the problem here - nobody wants their protagonists to be goody two-shoes and perfect bores. Eventually he winds up in New York, reconnecting with bestie Alice and hoping, more out of desperation than any real love or devotion, to perhaps rekindle the flame with Miko. It’s a familiar premise - the cynical antisocial dude who will go through some stuff and learn a valuable life lesson - and it tends to head in familiar directions as Ben, now semi-single, navigates the Bay Area dating scene, first hitting on an employee (Tavi Gevinson) and striking out before hooking up with a girl on the rebound (Debby Ryan) in a short-lived fling again tested by Ben’s contradictory feelings about race. But mostly he fails to hear what both Miko and his best friend, the snarky and girl-crazy Alice (Sherry Cola), have been trying to tell him all along: that the main problem with Ben is Ben. He’s a born contrarian who refuses to recognize that his race can be an issue at all - unless, that is, when it suits him to do so. The fact that the porn stars are all white women seems to pose more of a problem for Miko than the porn itself, but Ben doesn’t want to hear it.
Although the two have been together for some time, their relationship seems to be at a standstill, so when Miko takes off for an internship in New York, Ben sees this as a moment to go after the women he’s been fantasizing about - as evidenced by the abundant porn Miko discovers on his laptop. 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.ĭivided into short chapters just like Tomine’s comic books, the film follows the snobbish and misanthropic Ben as he navigates a dead-end life in Berkeley, where he works at a neighborhood movie theater and lives in the swank apartment of the crazy rich Miko, who, like Ben, is Japanese American. Shortcomings is, alas, not that cool and artsy movie - nor is it the glossy popcorn bling-a-thon that turned Asians into a worldwide smash. Screenwriter: Adrian Tomine, based on his graphic novel
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