Shortbus

USA 2006, 101 minutes
Dir. John Cameron Mitchell
Rating: [R18]
Genres: Drama, Comedy / Sex, LGBT, Controversy

Feat. Sook-Yin Lee, Lindsay Beamish, Paul Dawson, PJ DeBoy

Aroview: A raucous, freewheeling comedy of intercourse from gay auteur John Cameron Mitchell, audacious in its employment of explicit sex, unknown actors and a post-9/11 milieu of disenchanted New Yorkers who converge on an underground club dubbed the ‘Shortbus’ in search of life and love fulfillment.

Controversial for boasting (quite literally) an orgy of unsimulated sex scenes not seen before outside of XXX pornography, Mitchell against all odds weaves a comedic honesty into what might’ve been just another film for the ‘raincoats’. It is most revelatory as a frank and funny treatment of sexual relations, embracing with open arms the act as a natural and positive extension of human connection. Less winning are some of the various characters that populate the Shortbus, the core of whom resemble secondhand off cuts from the SEX AND THE CITY crowd, plagued by their own emotional hang-ups while forever trying to get laid.

NZ International Film Festival 2006