Straight to DVD

Shortbus

I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that I've seen an inordinate number of the nonporn films rumored or known to include unsimulated sex. 9 Songs? Check. Intimacy? Check. Don't Look Now? Yeah, still getting over that one. (Not because of the sex, either). It's strange, because I'm not even a fan of most of these movies, which tend to focus on desperate, bleak, and/or disturbing sexuality.

Which brings me to Shortbus. Whitney and I were fans of actor-director John Cameron Mitchell's debut film, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, so when we heard he'd be making his follow-up about sexually frustrated young New Yorkers who meet to hash out their problems (in various ways) at a Brooklyn sex club — and, oh yeah, the sex was going to be real — we thought, Huh? Then, having become parents, we promptly forgot about it. Eventually, though, it turned up in our Netflix "recommended" list, and we thought, Oh, what the hell. Still, had the director not been Mitchell, I can't imagine we would have gone anywhere near it.

And that would have been a pity, because Shortbus is a sweet little movie, from its gorgeously painted scale-model-of-NYC opening set piece to, yes, the sex scenes. Its story follows three characters: a female sex therapist who has never had an orgasm (Sook-Yin Lee), a gay man in a committed relationship who cannot open himself to love (Paul Dawson), and a professional dominatrix who has trouble establishing personal relationships of any kind (Lindsay Beamish). These three, their romantic partners, and a lot of other New Yorkers of nearly every imaginable type all come together (pardon the pun) at Shortbus, a sex-club-cum-salon (last one, I promise) that takes its name from the bus the "normal" kids in the big yellow schoolbus don't ride in.

Mitchell's intent is quite serious. His characters' problems involve sex, either specifically or peripherally, and Shortbus isn't all that different from many other films on this topic ? except that instead of fading out or editing carefully during the sex scenes, Mitchell just shows everything (and it's real). The sex itself, while certainly graphic, feels surprisingly natural, taking all the forms it really does take in life: sometimes tender, sometimes sad, sometimes boring, often very funny. Most important, almost all of it is organic to the interweaving plots, which do stray at times into the predictable and hackneyed, but are generally quite moving. (The very brave — or is it just very extroverted? — cast, in particular the wide-open, sad-eyed Dawson, deserve a lot of credit.)

The overall effect, after the initial shock of "That's real sex, all right" (the film opens with a big sex montage, probably to get that out of the way), was to make me think how strange it is that this hasn't been done before. Sex is part of our lives; why has it never been an open part of the lives we see on film? (I know, I know, there are reasons.) The other surprise was that Shortbus isn't remotely titillating, prurient, or porn-y. In fact, it's not, nor is it intended to be, a sexy movie. It is, however, a pretty good one.

I'm not sure how to rate this film; I liked it, obviously, but just as obviously, it isn't to every taste. So: If you think you might like it, well, I think you might, too.