Shortbus

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

Developed by Mitchell and the actors, the characters don't always seem consistent from moment to moment, but a sharp sense of humor and comfortable performances by a committed and--it must be said--remarkably limber cast help smooth over the rough edges.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

Shortbus is nothing if not over-the-top, replete with consummated sex acts, both gay and straight.

LA Weekly Scott Foundas

The boldest provocation of Mitchell’s sweet, tender and gently funny film may be its exuberant celebration of community and togetherness at a cultural moment rife with fatalism and disconnect.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

If there is such a thing as hard-core with a soft heart, this is it.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

A darkly comic trifle that follows in the footsteps of such films as Catherine Breillat's "Romance" (2000), "The Brown Bunny" (2003) and Michael Winterbottom's "9 Songs" (2004) by incorporating hard-core sex into a nonpornographic narrative.

Premiere Glenn Kenny

Mitchell's energy and occasional ingenuity make Shortbus an engaging viewing experience, provided you can stomach it.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Mitchell's adventurous, big- hearted, pansexual mosaic of New Yorkers looking for love and orgasms (not necessarily in that order), is a rare example of a nonporn film that doesn't exploit graphic sex as a gimmick.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Shortbus is, first and foremost, an experiment -- an accessible, audience-friendly movie about love and sex in which the screen doesn't fade to black once the actors start taking off their clothes.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

In Shortbus, the impish writer-director John Cameron Mitchell does the unthinkable: He puts the joy back in movie sex.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

It's refreshing to see a non-mainstream movie that wears its heart and lust on its sleeve, and has anything but violence on its mind.

Village Voice Jim Ridley

There's something refreshingly frisky and celebratory about Shortbus that offsets its flaws. It's a triple-X midnight movie with a heart of squarest gold.

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

An ode to the joy and sweet release of sex, the film manages to be a sincere, modest political venture that finds humor where you might least expect it, notably in a ménage à trois featuring a cheeky rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner."

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

The sex is the most unremarkable thing about it. What surprised me most about this gentle-spirited sprawl of a movie, set in post-9/11 New York City, is what I can only call the friendly, Midwestern quality of the filmmaking.

Austin Chronicle Marrit Ingman

The quest for sexual happiness is a radical notion in these repressive times, as well as a legitimate basis for storytelling, but Shortbus doesn't quite delve as deeply as it ought into its characters' emotions.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Some viewers will call the whole business pornography, though it doesn't really qualify. The sex is blunt and enthusiastic, but arousing it ain't. In fact, when Shortbus arrives on DVD, viewers may be fast-forwarding through the sex to get to the acting.

Newsweek David Ansen

Shortbus tends to work better in its first, comic half, than in its second, more serious stretch, where the characters' trials and tribulations flirt with soap opera. The actors, formidable with their clothes off, aren't always as expressive fully dressed.

Los Angeles Times Mark Olsen

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.

Variety Todd McCarthy

Unquestionably the most sexually graphic American narrative feature ever made outside the realm of the porn industry, John Cameron Mitchell's ambitious attempt to merge his characters' active sexual lives with more conventional emotional content is playfully and provocatively entertaining for roughly the first half, but loses staying power thereafter when investment in the uncompelling characters' problems is requested.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Shortbus is chipper, it's fresh, it emits a distinct musk of controversy. I'll take the longbus.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Although Shortbus doesn't work as porn (and I don't believe it's intended to), it also doesn't work as a serious drama. The storyline is juvenile and the characters remain poorly developed and incomplete.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Kate Taylor

For all the carnality on offer here, Mitchell and his cast seem ambivalent about sex.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

The film lacks the depth and discipline of Mitchell's first film venture, "Hedwig and the Angry Inch," which makes Shortbus a real disappointment.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

While the film has visual verve, its faux-Fellini finale only underscores how remote, repetitive, uninvolving and contrived the whole enterprise is.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

It runs out of energy before the end.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Shortbus suffers from a vague, ad lib-y script and a cast that, while hardly shy, isn't exactly charismatic.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

The premise -- a roundelay of New Yorkers looking for connection, or to escape it -- feels tired, and Mitchell's portrayal of sex as the ultimate vehicle for transcendence, self-knowledge and healing, while conveyed with authentic sweetness, seems shockingly naive.

San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein

Mitchell may be another Russ Meyer -- a dubious honor -- but he's no Tony Kushner.