Caminhos Tortos

In a funny way, this movie is exactly the type of movie that is talk about in Shortcoming... The main character is someone who does not accept himself with his bias...but also project on others this bias...he is unhappy and make everyone around him unhappy ...your typical guest to find happiness by discovering & accepting who were are...the thing that make this movie different is that the main characters are Asian...but also their acting which make it believable, some funny moments, some serious, some unreal, just like life itself. An other spectator used the term man\child which would also fit.

Shortcomings is a film I had been wanting to see for a while, but because of the underwhelmingly lukewarm response it received from other reviewers I was not in a hurry to spend my money just to be disappointed. But I am glad I finally watched it!

I'm definitely part of the target demographic which isn't strictly Asian-American, it's more of anti-romantic comedy for older urban Millennials who are still struggling with being adultier adults at 35 or 40. There was also a lot of queer representation. I started laughing out loud at the obvious dig at Crazy Rich Asians in the first five minutes. Yet there's also a poignant shift in perspective closer to the end of the story.

Ben is every "too cool to like anything" mildly toxic masculinity trope from my generation. Apart from the chip on his shoulder about being perceived as less macho as an Asian man, he's stereotypically every suburban white guy from younger Gen X or older Millennial high school and college who mocked people for liking certain bands, was always too full of himself to watch certain movies. I've had relationships with men like Ben when I was younger. I think calling him a narcissist is going a bit too far, but he's definitely immature and can be deeply unpleasant because his own insecurity in his masculinity makes him passive-aggressive and hostile like a permanently 17 year old black rain cloud on other people's joy.

His best friend, Alice, is an equally sharp-tongued and emotionally unavailable lesbian force to be reckoned with and her own growth over the arc of the story is implied to inspire Ben to finally grow up, too.

Rating: 5.0 Overall, a pretty bland movie that tries way too hard to be meta and 'anti-woke' that it does not do a good job at being realistic as the direction of actors is pretty bad and the writing is bland/predictable, with the ending feeling like a Dhar Mann video.

Pretty Bad Direction (Moves the story forward in a decent way, but it just feels like there is a lot of empty space in the interpersonal scenes cause it doesn't feel like the characters have chemistry with each other (They just feel like stock videos); uses the Rom-Com template as a foil as many aspects of the movie steal from the genre's tropes (but makes fun of it in a meta manner)), Pretty Bad to Decent Acting (Pretty Bad to Decent from Justin H. Min (Has some moments where he is pretty good but somewhere he clearly is reaching a dramatic limit (Does not hold his own as the leading character as he does not have good chemistry with the rest of the cast (which could be attributed to how he was written))), Decent to Pretty Good from Sherry Cola (The best performance of the movie as plays to her characters strengths well (the comic-relief best friend trope) and gives some range within the confines of what her character is supposed to do (though there is some visible limitation)), Pretty Bad from Ally Maki (The performance just feels a bit one-dimension and the scenes with Min do not have any chemistry (which makes their interpersonal scenes very bland)), Pretty Bad to Decent from Tavi Gevinson (This is more of how the character is written but she just does not feel that believable in this role (mainly from poor direction)), Pretty Bad from Debby Ryan (Does not have any chemistry with Min as her performance just feels very bland and stock), Decent to Pretty Good from Sonoya Mizuno (The most experienced member of the cast as she does show some range of emotion (the only issue being that she does not have that many times to show it and does not work well off of the other characters)), Decent from Jacob Batalon (The comedic relief character that does a decent job at eliciting laughs from the audience, but does not feel very fluid as some parts of the performance felt off), Pretty Bad from the rest of the cast (Just a lot of minor side characters that do not provide anything)), Pretty Bad Story (The main purpose of the story is to mock the Rom-Com genre, but by doing this it does not develop good story elements as it is more focused on the dialogue and jokes rather than developing an interesting story (everything just feels very stock and safe)), Bad Screenplay (The dialogue feels incredibly simplistic; there were some good jokes but it mostly just felt like the movie was trying to be too Meta to the point that some of the conversations are just hard to listen to for how much back-pedaling there is; the symbolism and message is very shallow as the movie is overt in what it is trying to say but does not do a good job at making the meaning believable), Decent Score (Pretty generic for a rom-com), Decent Cinematography, Decent Sound (The scene where they used the concession microphone in the conversation was a very nice touch, but there were some moments where the mixing felt off), Pretty Bad to Decent Editing (Felt incredibly simplistic and choppy (just safe overall so nothing incredibly wrong)), Plot Structure follows a very similar template to that of a Rom-Com (even though the elements are meant to mimic the opposite), Pacing was a bit quicker than I would have liked (maybe adding 10 minutes to help slow the movie down would have been nice), Climax was incredibly cliche and predictable as the movie builds up to being an 'anti-climax'; the ending sequence of the movie is just so safe and bland that it feels like a Dhar Mann ending (especially with the narration and montage sequence), Tone was incredibly bland as the whole movie felt like it was a stock/fake movie that they would use in a real film (which is ironic given there is one of those in this movie)

Of course, a protagonist can be a loser, but he or she has to have something of quality that the audience can fall in love with or even at least can relate to or root for. Ben is controlling, unfaithful, negative, and being a racist himself. Most importantly, he's the biggest hypocrite. All the other things, he can be loved by character development, but he does what he despises and criticizes without any moral conflict. That's when the audience drops any interest left in him. The ending is weak as well.

As Randall Park's directorial debut, 'Shortcomings' is not bad at telling the story and continuing it smoothly without any huge leap of logic.

Ok. I overrated it. It's not that something worth a 10/10. But I really enjoyed watching it. It reminds me when I'm young. When I don't know how to appreciate what I have. Keep chasing the feelings like trophy collection. Obsessed with one relationship. Biased. Sometimes frustrated. All of these are actually called growing up. It's a period of time, while you learn how to fight, how to let go and move on. Learn how to live with it en enjoy the moment. Learn how to appreciate and respect. Park, I think I got what you trying to say.

There are several times in the movie people used the term of "what age is he living in". I think that was a key of explaining some times we are deeply impacted by the ideals that we were educated or lectured during our childhood. One day when you wake up and start to think and selectively review these things we were taught, that's called maturity.

That's what this movie made me think of. Kinda deep. Again, I really enjoyed it.