Shortbus

This film is an unabashedly sexually charged and frank look at people, their relationships and how sex is intertwined into it.

The treatment is both naïve yet incredibly sophisticated—even while showing very intense sexual scenes, it doesn't sugarcoat or judge them, but merely explores them in a way that most American cinema is afraid to do.

It is as one of the actors says "Voyeurism is Participation" (or somewhat close to that). Simply by viewing it, we explore the actors interconnected relationships and hear the their stories in a way that makes us care about them and recognize their bruised humanity in ourselves, our friends and our neighbors (or at least as I have witnessed out my window) Somewhat close in spirit to "The Dreamers" but with a dash of neurotic comedy. Not so slapstick like "Another Gay Movie" but with the same laugh out loud, pee in your pants humor that had had the audience both fantasizing and roaring out in laughter at the same time.

Director John Cameron Mitchell dares to take a retro-clinging America into the twenty-first century with this brave, humanistic art-house film wherein an ensemble cast of little known actors and numerous non-actors portray characters exploring emotions and relationships in a New York City underground club called the Shortbus.

As a gay couple with relationship problems, James (Paul Dawson) and Jamie (P.J. DeBoy), consult a young sex therapist named Sofia (Sook-Yin Lee) who, as it turns out, is in need of some therapy herself. The film's weak plot steers them to the Shortbus, wherein sex and open relationships trump everything else in life, as if people obsess about sex every minute of every day. The film's sex scenes are explicit and graphic, but never exploitative.

Most of the characters are to varying degrees pleasantly unique. I especially liked Justin Bond, the club's tour guide. The film's costumes and production design are terrific. Artwork is mod, as you would expect. And the film's music captures a progressive feel, and varies from nouveau jazz to the stirring humanistic anthem "In The End", performed by the entire cast, and led with flair by Justin Bond.

Unorthodox both in substance and style, in a society that too often demands traditional correctness, "Shortbus" is Mitchell's cinematic plea for cultural compassion and mercy, tolerance and acceptance. It is a cinematic theme that is much needed in America, where hatred and intolerance toward all things nonconforming seriously risk diversity of thought and behavior. At the very least, the film is a welcome change from your mainstream Hollywood assembly-line cinematic trash. I suspect, however, that "Shortbus" really is the wave of the future, particularly in forward-looking societies. More power to it.

What everyone will hear about "Shortbus" is that the sex is real and explicit. Yes, this is all true. But so is the emotional journey the characters go through.

Far from being crude or offensive, Shortbus is fresh, insightful, celebratory -- and, most importantly, focused on the fully realized people, not just the bodies, who bare their flesh and feelings on screen. Like Michael Winterbottom, who made the explicit "9 Songs," writer/director John Cameron Mitchell says he wants to show true human sexuality as part of his story. Unlike "9 Songs," which seemed to focus on 1/8 of the full human experience of relationships (concerts and sex), Mitchell's "Shortbus" approaches 9/10 of the authentic experience of being human, being miserable, looking to come to joy, and exploring funny, sensual, and affectionate avenues to get there.

Is "Shortbus" provocative? Yes. Is it explicit? Yes! And these are good things in these politically authoritarian times.

There are a couple of features about this movie that will hit you. Yes there is some rather graphic sex, but to anyone after hitting adulthood it works purely to support the film, erotic would be too strong a word for it. It is to everybody's' credit that this was possible. The model of New York works great and is a real devise for the movie.

As we progress through the film we see the lives of a small group of New Yorkers grow as they develop their relationships or indeed the quest for a relationship. The medium for bringing these lives together is the "Shortbus" club. A rather carnal club which they all drawn to becomes a focus for their development. Each confronts their own particular daemons. As heavy as this sounds, it is quite a light hearted film. The closing scenes are fantastic. As you watch this film you will feel yourself being dragged in, until the end when u feel almost as if you are part of it.

A great movie, one which should become a cult classic (only because it might be a bit too "graphic" for mainstream cinemas, but certainly a classic. Any attempt to sanitize and edit it would surely destroy the film.

This movie will make you laugh, cry and sing; you will leave the movie theatre affected by this film.

Shortbus reviewed by Sam Osborn

I have a bad feeling that after the first ten minutes of Shortbus are through, much of the audience will have already left; because within this first segment, sophomore director John Cameron Mitchell has the mind to show his audience the nature of this very, ahem…frank work. Audiences will have witnessed filmed masturbation, wild fornication in a myriad of poses, and a scene of S&M sexual nature. These are all acts we've seen before from other Hollywood pictures; but then again, those pictures only played pretend. Shortbus requires all its actors to do such acts for real.

Is Porn too strong a word to describe such a film? It's debatable, I suppose. Films that boast actual penetration are usually not found in theatres anymore; instead hidden in the back of your video rental stores, or placed neatly on a shady internet site. But Pornography uses plot mechanisms only to drive the story into another sex scene. Shortbus has plot mechanisms to drive the arcs of its characters. That its characters all play roles indulgent in fornication is simply the nature of Shortbus' stories. But enough about the ethics of Shortubus; it's a good film. And if you're not too squeamish for the subject matter, and have a mind for tongue-in-cheek wit, then it shouldn't matter how close to porn the film means to aim.

It's a story of New Yorkers. A fringe group of New Yorkers who all meet at the underground lounge Shortbus. It's a place of casual frivolity, where people of any sexual preference are free to indulge in whatever they please. They mingle and dance and drink and have sex, all happily and without any semblance of filth or vice. These people are simply enjoying themselves and being quite hilarious while they do it. The members that we're asked to follow all come from the Magnolia school of connections, where links between characters are often coincidental and illogical, but acceptable as obligations of an ensemble drama. Sofia (Sook-Yin Lee) is a Sex Therapist who prefers to be called a Couples Councilor and who's unable to have an orgasm. She's invited to Shortbus by the club's poster child couple, Jamie and Jamie (Paul Dawson and PJ DeBoy), who assure Sofia that if there's an orgasm to be found, it's hidden within Shortbus. In a dark room there, Sofia meets Severina (Lindsay Beamish), a lonely dominatrix who gets mean when uncomfortable, and whose longest relationship was with the geeky trust fund sexual deviant.

All their stories are all human and kind of affecting, managing to dig their way out of the film's heaping shock factor to create something like empathy. It's nothing heartbreaking or particularly inspiring, but how much can we really expect from a film that has an entire scene dedicated to the National Anthem being sung into an anal orifice. But that's the charm of Shortbus, I suppose. Director/Writer John Cameron Mitchell has made a film more explicit than most pornography while keeping eroticism completely out of the equation. The film's sexuality is frank and the humor always constant, while avoiding jokes that patronize its cast of outsiders.

It's too easy to forget the poignancy of Shortbus, though. The dialogue that's sure to be shot wild by its release won't be about its humor or spirit; talk will be of the skin that was exposed in finding the better, realer bits. It's too bad, but, again, what can we expect from a film that sings the National Anthem into a man's anus? Rating: 3 out of 4

Samuel Osborn