Randall Park's rom-com 'Shortcomings' is filled with just that

“Shortcomings” begins with guns blazing. The directorial debut of “Fresh Off the Boat” star Randall Park starts with a savage parody of “Crazy Rich Asians,” featuring that film’s co-star Ronny Chieng and “Everything Everywhere All at Once” Oscar nominee Stephanie Hsu skewering the surprise 2018 blockbuster’s triumphalist wealth fantasies. This movie within a movie unspools at a fictionalized Bay Area Asian American Film Festival to a rhapsodic ovation from everyone in the audience. Everyone except for Ben (Justin H. Min), who sits there seething.

Our protagonist’s inability to keep a contrary opinion to himself sours the afterparty and embarrasses Ben’s longtime live-in girlfriend, Miko (Ally Maki), re-igniting what appears to be a fairly frequent feud between the two about Asian representation in media. Miko and her film festival pals are celebrating what a breakthrough it is to see people like themselves onscreen in a glossy Hollywood product, whereas bitter Ben would rather have his experiences reflected in a movie that’s actually, you know, good.

Is representation alone enough to merit recommendation? Not for a cinema monk like Ben: a film school dropout who sleepwalks through a job managing a failing arthouse movie theater and stays up all night watching Criterion Collection Blu-rays on the couch despite his gorgeous girlfriend begging him to come to bed. His surly behavior at the premiere is the last straw for Miko. She opts to take an internship with the aforementioned festival that requires relocating to New York City for a few months. She suggests the two take “a break,” which the crummy, complacent Ben doesn’t realize is more like a breakup. He sees it as a free pass to start dating again until she gets back.

In the summer of 2018, while trying to stay out of the “Crazy Rich Asians” debate that animates the first and best part of Park’s film, I meekly noted that in a perfect world, people of all races and backgrounds would have their own mediocre romantic comedies. “Shortcomings” suggests we’re well on our way. Adapted by Adrian Tomine from his graphic novel, the screenplay courageously digs into interracial dating taboos but doesn’t bother writing any good jokes about them. An early bit in which Miko borrows Ben’s laptop and is aghast to discover the tons of porn tabs he's left open is a perfect example: She’s not angry because he’s been looking at smut; she’s furious because all the girls are white. This is a killer comic premise for a scene that just sits there, undeveloped.

Aside from Miko, Ben has a type. His best friend Alice (Sherry Cola) likes to tease him about his affinity for young blondes. Not that she doesn’t share similar predilections — Alice can barely get through a meal without picking up the waitress — but she claims that her flings are “less creepy without the hetero power dynamics.” Cola, the funniest of the filthy foursome in last month’s “Joy Ride,” walks away with “Shortcomings” tucked squarely in her back pocket. You’ll wish the movie had been about Alice instead. On the periphery of the picture, this hell-raising, perpetual adolescent gets herself kicked out of grad school and surprises herself by moving to New York and finding happiness in a stable relationship. Cola gets all the movie’s best lines, sagely noting, “Just because I’m a hypocrite doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”

Alas, we’re stuck back in Berkley with Ben. He’s a real drip, especially when trying to score with a new employee at his movie theater, a young blonde (of course) performance artist gamely played by Tavi Gevinson. Speaking as someone who spent 14 years managing a floundering arthouse cinema, I can attest that the workplace depiction ranges from accurate to science-fiction, whether Ben is dating age-inappropriate staff members (guilty) or leaving the premises for long, leisurely lunches (I wish.) The cringiest scenes involve current Spider-Man sidekick Jacob Batalon as a teenage popcorn-slinger constantly mumbling about how much he loves Marvel movies. (It’s funny because he’s in them. Get it?)

The tiresome Ben is an age-old romantic comedy archetype invented by Woody Allen in “Annie Hall” and “Manhattan” — an insufferable intellectual holding the world in contempt who spends the movie learning how wrong he is. The thing about Allen is that these characters were so devastatingly funny that a lot of audiences didn’t notice how the leading man almost always ended up alone. Ben has the snobbishness and self-sabotaging tendencies of an Allen protagonist but none of the wit. He’s not cuttingly clever; he’s merely unpleasant. The titular “Shortcomings” are all in Ben’s personality, but spending 90 minutes waiting for him to wise up in the last two becomes a chore.

“Shortcomings” is in theaters now.