‘Shortcomings’: no ordinary romantic comedy

Above: Sherry Cola and Justin H. Min star in "Shortcomings." (Photo/Sony Pictures Classics)

Movie review: "Shortcomings, directed by Randall Park, starring Justin H. Min, Sherry Cola, Ally Maki. Playing in theaters.

“Shortcomings,” a film directed by Randall Park, opens with a scene from what could be your standard romantic comedy. In it, characters played by the real-life actors Stephanie Hsu and Ronnie Chieng end up happy and contented. And as this occurs, the characters sealing their affection with an obligatory rom-com kiss, the camera pulls away to reveal a theater full of – primarily – Asian moviegoers who are reacting with delight to what they have been watching.

But then we spot one unsmiling face. It belongs to Ben (played by Justin H. Min) who, unlike the movie fans around him – all of whom are applauding – is aghast at what he sees as pure bathos playing out on the screen. Ben, clearly, is a harsh critic.

And that harshness, in fact, encapsulates his whole attitude, not just toward life in general but particularly toward racial tropes – such as those embodied in the film “Crazy Rich Asians,” for example – that he finds so demeaning.

Based on Adrian Tomine’s graphic novel series, and adapted into a screenplay by Tomine himself, “Shortcomings” follows Ben as he navigates his long-term, live-in relationship with his girlfriend Miko (played by Ally Maki), as he hangs out with his lesbian best friend Alice (played by Sherry Cola) and as he attends to the duties of his menial job as the manager of a Berkeley, Calif., arthouse movie theater (though he harbors a yearning to be a filmmaker himself).

We learn pretty much all we need to know about Ben as he and Miko depart the theater. He criticizes the movie and what he sees as its obviously fictional depiction of life, especially in how insulting it is – in his view – toward race. Miko, who is a fan of cultural assimilation however vapidly it is portrayed, disagrees. And the two embark on the kind of conversation emblematic of domestic couples who are accustomed to – if not completely accepting of – each other’s disparate attitudes.

But it’s clear, too, that something deeper is going on. We discover that fairly soon when Miko tells Ben that, one, she has accepted an internship and, two, it will require her to move to New York City. Just as he is telling her that he isn’t interested in moving across the country, Ben hears Miko say that she wasn’t asking him to. And just like that, director Park has set the scene for a transition in, if not complete dissolution of, their relationship.

Not the most self-aware man about town, Ben – insisting that he and Miko are just taking a break – can’t resist the urge to indulge in his not-so-secret yearning, which is to hook up with a certain type of woman – namely, one who is white. And he does so, twice, though without much success.

Meanwhile, he isn’t the only one with relationship problems. Alice convinces him to pretend to be her boyfriend, even if he is Japanese and her family is Korean. Seems they, who still resent the horrors that Japan committed during World War II, would still rather have their daughter date a Japanese man than be intimate with a woman of any race.

The crux of “Shortcomings,” though, comes when Alice decides also to move to New York, where she meets her new partner, Meredith (played by Sonoya Mizuno). And Ben follows, if for no other reason than to reconnect with Miko, who – foreshadowing alert – hasn’t been answering his calls. What follows then is fairly predictable, though neither screenwriter Tomine nor director Park end up adhering to anything resembling the rom-com template.

Though much of what happens in “Shortcomings” involves serious topics, Park imbues most scenes with a comic tone. One hilarious scene in particular features the actor Timothy Simmons as a so-called “rice king” whom Ben instantly despises. Many of the film’s funniest lines come from Cola, a standup comedian who plays a similar character in the recent comedy “Joy Ride.”

Min, for his part, tends to play Alice’s straight man. That is, in between being the perfect embodiment of the kind of person whose critical eye tends to see the faults in everything and everyone except for those intrinsic to himself. It should come as no surprise that he is due for a reckoning.

And, yes, that is what happens – with Park leaving him gazing across the bay to the city, two questions hanging in the air: Will he seek his future there, or will he plant his obligatory rom-com kiss on his own stuck-in-the-present self?