"Shortbus"

Oct. 4, 2006 | At a screening a few weeks back I overheard a fellow critic describing to another colleague, in derisive detail, one of the numerous (unsimulated) sex scenes in John Cameron Mitchell's "Shortbus," which I hadn't yet seen. The sequence in question involved a somewhat awkward threesome and the humming of "The Star Spangled Banner" right into that spot where the sun don't shine, but never mind that for now. This critic, who writes for a mainstream national publication, had decided not to cover the picture at all, reasoning that it was a bad movie that wouldn't be opening in most towns anyway. Why bother?

Decreeing "Shortbus" unsuitable for the masses seemed a little weird, considering that so many critics had already come back from Cannes talking about how notably unsexy, if charming, the picture was. (My colleague Andrew O'Hehir, writing from the festival, summed it up perfectly as "a sad, sweet openhearted work.")

But after I saw "Shortbus," the notion that the good folk of America had to be protected from it seemed even weirder. "Shortbus" does feature unsimulated sex, both gay and straight (solo, duo, trio and beyond). Yet 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. It's as if Mitchell -- the thoughtful, mischievous faun behind "Hedwig and the Angry Inch," one of the only truly swinging rock musicals ever made -- were calling out to one and all, "Come on over, kids -- we're having a sex party!" This may be a movie made by a New Yorker (albeit a Texas-born one), yet it's anything but insular. Gregarious, neurotic, maybe a little guilty of oversharing: "Shortbus" is American right to its nonexistent short shorts.

Mitchell is credited as the director and writer of "Shortbus," but he's really more of a conductor, a maestro in charge of overseeing the picture's multiple stories, which were conceived and developed by the performers. (Listen to Mitchell discuss the film here.) Mitchell and the actors, many of whom are his friends, rehearsed on-and-off for two and a half years, which helps explain the movie's relaxed, improvisational feel -- and also why it sometimes feels like a bit of a mess.

But sex isn't so neat, either. And considering the pitfalls that lie in wait when you attempt a free-form process like this, "Shortbus" hangs together surprisingly well. Mitchell opens the story with a naked guy in a bathtub -- we later learn that his name is Jamie (the actor who plays him is Paul Dawson) -- who's part of one of the most adorable couples in New York, the kind of couple that most people, coupled or not, straight or gay, envy. These two are known as Jamie and Jamie (the other Jamie is played by PJ DeBoy), and they are truly adorable, but they're not quite happy: Dawson's Jamie has suggested, for reasons that somewhat puzzle DeBoy's Jamie, that they open up their relationship. So they seek the guidance of couples counselor Sofia (Sook-Yin Lee), who has her own problems with her husband, the goateed, underemployed Rob (Raphael Barker): She has never had an orgasm with him, or with anyone. As she blurts out -- inappropriately, but this is a movie about dissolving boundaries -- in the middle of her tense first session with the Jamies, she's pre-orgasmic. (One of the Jamies, trying to wrap his brain around this wholly foreign concept, innocently asks her, "Does that mean you're about to have one?")

The Jamies find themselves in the position of wanting to help Sofia, a crisp, efficient, overachieving Asian-Canadian who really does need to learn to let go. So they invite her to Shortbus, an underground salon hosted by swanning bon vivant Justin Bond (played by the real-life Justin Bond, who's also part of the cabaret duo Kiki and Herb), a combination performance space and sugar shack, where people get together to talk, hang out, eat hash-enhanced snacks, and, if they're moved to, have sex -- possibly with the partner they brought, or maybe with somebody (or somebodies) new. (The salon's name, as Mitchell explains in the press notes, is a reference to the shorter yellow school bus often ridden by "special needs" kids -- a vehicle for outcasts and misfits.)

Next page: A sea of undulating naked bodies