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Shortbus
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Metascore
64 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 27 Critics What's this?

User Score
7.6 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 67 Ratings

Your Score
10 out of 10
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  • Starring: Peter Stickles, PJ DeBoy, Sook-Yin Lee
  • Summary: John Cameron Mitchell's Shortbus explores the lives of several emotionally challenged characters as they navigate the comic and tragic intersections between love and sex in and around a modern-day underground salon. The characters converge on a weekly gathering called Shortbus: a mad nexus of art, music, politics and polysexual carnality. Set in a post-9/11, Bush-exhausted New York City, Shortbus tells its story with sexual frankness, suggesting new ways to reconcile questions of the mind, pleasures of the flesh and imperatives of the heart. (ThinkFilm)… Expand

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 15 out of 27
  2. Mixed: 11 out of 27
  3. Negative: 1 out of 27
  1. Baltimore Sun
    Reviewed by: Chris Kaltenbach
    83
    Shortbus is nothing if not over-the-top, replete with consummated sex acts, both gay and straight.
  2. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Mark Olsen
    60
    Though it flirts with the hard-core, there is something strangely flaccid about Shortbus, a ragged, uneven quality that, however purposeful, makes it feel less than fully formed.
  3. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Ruthe Stein
    25
    Mitchell may be another Russ Meyer -- a dubious honor -- but he's no Tony Kushner.

See all 27 Critic Reviews

User Reviews

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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 29 out of 36
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 36
  3. Negative: 5 out of 36
  1. ScottF.
    10
    The wild and varied range of reactions elicited by this movie demonstrate that it does indeed strike a chord. Watch it and be moved.
    • 1 of 1 users said yes
  2. StuartS
    5
    Some said this was a mature look at sex and not pornography. Yes, but it is a film about what most people would feel is perversion and deals in depth with homosexuality. Also, the plot-- well, I think there was one, but I couldn't find or follow it.… Expand
    • 0 of 0 users said yes
  3. BradR.
    3
    This is a movie trying so hard to be at once acceptable and provocative that it ends up being one long string of cliches. Not that it doesn't have its pleasures, guilty or otherwise: the opening is playful, there are funny moments here and there, and there are some jarringly un-funny moments too (e.g., the dead man in the pool). But finally, the film is as tame and conventional as it could be. Comedy tends toward convention and re-asserting a status quo, but great comedy unsettles us to the core before pretending to patch things up. Mitchell and his cast never manage to really unsettle us, at least not believably (spoiler warning!). For instance, Jamie's suicide attempt and its resolution seemed painfully contrived and trivial--and the same came be said for much of the sex, which doesn't finally serve any point. I know that last statement may blow the fuses of the film's many fans, so I'll add another just for fun: take out the sex (yes, it's possible) and what you're left with is a completely conventional, normative romantic comedy. If you want a thought-provoking film about sex, watch Last Tango instead.… Expand
    • 0 of 0 users said yes

See all 36 User Reviews

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