Deborah Lipp

Shortbus (2006) 10/10
Sofia (Sook-Yin Lee), Severin (Lindsay Beamish), James (Paul Dawson), Jamie (PJ DeBoy), and their friends and lovers struggle to find pleasure, love, and connection in New York City. Written and directed by John Cameron Mitchell.

Let’s start by acknowledging that this is a sexually explicit movie. As in, very. The opening sequence makes that abundantly clear, so that anyone uncomfortable with the sight of penetration, domination, and masturbation is going to turn the movie off in the first few minutes. The movie doesn’t simply include sex; sex is its primary metaphor for communicating about its characters, and the main setting is the private sex club that gives the movie its title.

Sofia is a sex therapist (“I prefer the term ‘couples counselor'”), the fact of which is the movie’s greatest weakness. Sofia is “pre-orgasmic;” despite an active and athletic sex life, she has never had an orgasm, and she is lying to her husband about it. Her story is poignant, and indeed, forms the centerpiece of the movie. But I absolutely despise movies that give people professions as a prop, or a placeholder, or as ironic commentary. There is simply no way that Sofia is a sex therapist. It’s not just that she’s bad, and inappropriate, it’s that she seems to have no education about sex at all. And I’m pretty sure that’s a requirement. The unprofessional professional is an irritant whenever it shows up in films, never more so than here.

Despite that, I adored this movie. I was stunned by its beauty, by the delicacy with which people’s needs and sorrows emerge, by the tenderness with which the film views their loneliness and desire.

In her first counseling session with “the Jamies” (actually James and Jamie), a gay couple considering exploring open relationships, Sofia has an outburst and reveals she is pre-orgasmic (wherein Jamie gets off one of the movie’s funniest lines, reminding us that gay men really don’t know all that much about female sexuality). Believing it will help her, the Jamies invite her to Shorbus, a sex club for misfits and people exploring the outré within themselves. There Sofia meets Severin, a “pro-domme” (professional dominatrix) who has never had a real relationship. The two form a friendship.

Meanwhile, the Jamies meet Ceth (Jay Brannan), but there is more troubling the relationship than any of them know.

I was trying to think of what movie Shortbus reminded me of, and I realized it was Bubble. The characters and events have absolutely nothing in common, but the tone, the authenticity, the simplicity of letting the characters just be themselves, and the overwhelming sense of truth and wonder are similar. Bubble, of course, uses ordinary life, mostly work. Shortbus uses sex, including kinky, unusual, and perverse sex, but that, too, is a part of life.

Shortbus is funny, touching, occasionally erotic, often sad, and extremely entertaining. It is such a remarkable achievement that I’m giving it 10 out of 10 despite its one irritating flaw. I recommend the “making of” feature included on the DVD as well, which gives a lot of insight into the complex problems of creating a sexually explicit feature film.

Sideways (2004) 5/10
Miles (Paul Giamatti) takes his friend Jack (Thomas Haden Church) on a road trip to wine country the week before Jack’s wedding. There they meet and become involved with two beautiful wine connoisseurs (Sandra Oh and Virginia Madson).

Gods, did I hate this movie.

Okay, that’s kind of strong. There’s certainly a lot to commend. Giamatti’s performance is nuanced and rather brilliant. Madsen and Oh are radiant and sharp. There were some decent laughs, and the movie is intelligently written. For all of that, it pretty much made my skin crawl.

First, can we talk about Thomas Haden Church? He looks like the Claymation version of a handsome man. His face is soft and sort of semi-formed. I was totally on board when he was cast as the Sandman, a character who turns into sand, because he kind of looks like that all the time. It’s very distracting to watch his squishy face, which is consistent with his squishy character. It’s a child’s face, and Jack behaves like a child.

The problem with Sideways is that Miles and Jack are detestable men with barely any character arc. I’m all about dislikable characters, but give me something. Within the first fifteen minutes of the movie, Miles has lied to his friend Jack, dawdled when he was already late, and stolen from his mother. Really, by this point I absolutely despised Miles, and didn’t give a shit what his fucking character journey was. But I stuck with the movie in the hopes that things would shape up.

Silly me.

Giamatti has one absolutely stellar monologue, in which he talks about the wonders of the Pinot grape. How it’s thin-skinned, temperamental, not a survivor, but has the most brilliant and thrilling flavors if it’s grown correctly. It’s very clear that he’s describing himself, but wonderfully, neither he nor Maya (Madsen) spell out the simile; the viewer can know it without having it hammered home. The thing is, though, that Miles is thin-skinned and temperamental, but I never really bought that he was thrilling and brilliant.

A negative protagonist works when you sense there’s something good within that is unexpressed. You root for the character in the hopes that the good will come out, or that the character will survive the adventure to perhaps find that goodness at a later date. But neither Miles nor Jack evince any decent qualities at all. Miles is smug and disdainful in every conversation, he feels sorry for himself, he whines, he pontificates, and he is seething with anger. Jack is a philanderer and a big ol’ baby. Despite everything these men go through, they just persist in being their small-minded, nasty selves.

You know, when you read that, you can think it’s intelligent, or realistic, or whatever. Mostly, whiny depressive snots don’t much change. But everything in the script and presentation sets you up to expect the heartwarming moment. There is a heartwarming moment at the very end, but it’s tepid, and entirely too small in proportion to what has gone before.

Hollywood, including “indie” Hollywood, has too many goddamn movies about self-pitying middle-aged white men with delusions of intellectualism and fear of commitment. Yeah, I get it, they write what they know. But all that does is make me feel irritated that they don’t know anything else. If I met Miles or Jack at a party I’d chat with them for ten minutes and then walk away, annoyed. Instead, I was stuck with them for two hours.