Drama

Film review by Jason Day of Shortbus (2006), the ‘sex in the city’ drama a relationship therapist helped in her search for an orgasm by the members of a New York sex club. Directed by John Cameron Mitchell.

Synopsis

A group of New Yorkers caught up in their romantic-sexual milieu converge at an underground salon infamous for its blend of art, music, politics, and carnality (from IMDb).

Review, by @Reelreviewer

For the terminally short-of-time cinema fans or the horny set looking to get off as often as possible, here’s a neat trick to get the most out of Shortbus – tune in for the opening credits sequences and then tune out.

Rather ambitiously, director/co-producer/writer John Cameron Mitchell takes us furtive filmgoers through a cornucopia of canoodling within just a few minutes. It’s a breathless bonkathon, including full-frontal male nudity, a close-up of the actor’s penis as he touches and photographs himself in the bath before acrobatically whipping his legs up in the air for a bit of the old ‘self-sucking’. Like you do on a quiet afternoon when your spouse is out.

A couple has full penetrative sex (you see it all, people) before the female half appears to ‘peg’ her male partner (for sensitive souls, I won’t describe that act, but here’s a summary), there’s Sado-Masochism and ejaculations everywhere!

As Kenny Everett’s immortal Hollywood babe Cupid Stunt would say, it’s all done in the best possible taste, but does the director ‘shoot his bolt’ and climax too early? It’s a startling way to start a film and jolts the viewer awake, but the rest of the movie – an OK if dramatically tepid and slim piece about a sex therapist in search of an orgasm – is anti-climatic.

There’s no ‘after-sex’, not even so much as a cinematic post-coital ciggy as the action goes from erect to flaccid.

Shortbus is a sex club where no holds are barred (or should that be no holes barred?), but is it believable that a relationship therapist who has never had an orgasm enters and is on the frigid side by what she sees? For me, this stretched the suspension of disbelief, but that’s not to say the performance of Sook-Yin Lee as that therapist isn’t believable. It’s interesting to go on this inauthentic trip with her and see the supposed worldly-wise professional open up and come out of herself.

As a side note – and entirely by accident, rather than design. Honest! – I watched Shortbus the day after Showgirls (1995). No, I’m not an erotic film junkie, but Shortbus was recommended to me by a friend who knew I’d seen that Paul Verhoeven Las Vegas-set movie.

Both focus on sex, but where Shortbus relates to sexual exploration and developing and maintaining relationships through real physical intimacy, Showgirls plumps for sexual exploitation as men and women use simulated sex (sometimes embarrassingly so) to control and manipulate each other.

Showgirls is artificial, contrived and nasty (some of it is downright toxic and worrying), but Shortbus has a heart, and that heart is in the right place. Neither are great as pieces of cinema, but Shortbus at least takes you down the right road of a cleaner, more pleasant journey.

Cast & credits

Director: John Cameron Mitchell. 1h 41mins/101 mins. THINKFilm/Fortissimo Films/Q Television/Process Media. (18).

Producers: Howard Gertler, John Cameron Mitchell, Tim Perell.
Writer: John Cameron Mitchell.
Camera: Frank G. DeMarco.
Music: Yo La Tengo.
Sets: Jody Asnes.

Paul Dawson, Lindsay Beamish, Adam Hardman, Sook-Yin Lee, Raphael Barker, Peter Stickles, PJ DeBoy.