A film about which must fuss has been made, mainly due to the sex scenes, reportedly the most graphic ever to go on general release in America. However this film is less about sex but more about sexuality, love, and emotional repression/liberation.
The sex scenes are more there to completely lay the characters (and the audience) totally bare, vulnerable and exposed. They are intimate and realistic, often uncomfortable and sometimes unintentionally hilarious, much like real sex. They are more likely to make you laugh than turn you on or shock you. In fact the sex is often secondary to the relationships it's illustrating.
The film follows a small group of screwed up people who find solace in the 'salon for the gifted and challenged' known as Shortbus, an anarchistic arts centre and squat with a sex room based on a real place in Brooklyn called DUMBA, which was closed down during mayor Giuliani's prudish purge. Male and female, straight and gay, the characters find one and other, and eventually find themselves, when they set foot in Shortbus, "a mad nexus of art, music, politics, and polysexual carnality."
"The boldest provocation of Mitchell’s sweet, tender and gently funny film may not be its depiction of graphic sex, but rather its exuberant celebration of community and togetherness at a cultural moment rife with fatalism and disconnect." ~ LA Weekly
"If there is such a thing as hard-core with a soft heart, this is it." ~ Rolling Stone
The film sparkles with subtly hilarious dialogue and a great array of characters played by an ensemble cast and more cameos than you can shake a stick at. The soundtrack is awesome too.
So sit back, relax and climb aboard the Shortbus (just don't watch it with your granny)
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