Shortbus (2006)
TOMATOMETER
AUDIENCE SCORE
Critic Consensus: The sex may be explicit, but Mitchell integrates it into the characters' lives and serves the whole story up with a generous dose of sweetness and wit.
Shortbus Photos
Movie Info
Cast
as Sofia
as James
as Jamie
as Rob
as Severin
as Caleb
as Little Prince
as Cheryl
as Tobias, the Mayor
as Jesse, the John
as Shabbos Goy
as Bitch
as The Albino
as Eric Gilliland
as Blondie-Grabber
as Himself
as Ceth
as Faustus
as Jid
as Bucky
as The World Famous *Bob*
as Dirty Martini
as Leah
as Nick
as Brad
as Creamy
as Dr. Donut
as Magnus
as Murray Hill
as Zoey
News & Interviews for Shortbus
Critic Reviews for Shortbus
All Critics (127) | Top Critics (44) | Fresh (85) | Rotten (42) | DVD (7)
Shortbus is not, above all, 'dirty.' What it is, in fact, is a nice movie, one of the nicest to come down the pike since March of the Penguins.
One woman's quest for the perfect orgasm may strike sophisticated viewers as the stuff of sexual farce at best, but Sook-Yin Lee's Sofia brings both emotion and eroticism to the proceedings, and for this Mr. Mitchell should be commended.
It runs out of energy before the end.
Wearing its controversy-courting eagerness to shock on its sleeve, the film aims to challenge taboos, but comes up short.
Few arthouse directors have put real sex to such narratively constructive and credibly, humorously human use.
A film that's thoughtful and exuberant, achingly sad and wildly funny.
Audience Reviews for Shortbus
If this firm didn't have considerable artistic and intellectual merit, it would be porn. But it does have merit and it has a LOT more to say than prurience or lust. In fact, such sentiments would be missing the point entirely. It's a brave and brash film about sexuality and relationships that makes one wonder -- why hasn't a film like this been made before?
Super Reviewer
Okay, honestly, I feel like the sex scenes were put there just to be titillating. Not effective.
Super Reviewer
I nearly turned it off in the first 20 minutes. Shocking, graphic sex. But when the main character (a sex therapist who can't achieve orgasm, played by Sook-Yin Lee) turns up at Shortbus - a sex club named after the little school buses, filled with "the challenged and the gifted," says the host - the content makes sense, and the almost-story begins to take shape as she and the other characters look for that perfect chemistry, however weird that may be. Mainly, I think this is a film about facing your biggest sexual difficulties straight-on, and by the end, it pulled me in, and the content didn't shock me anymore. A tough watch, borderline pornographic in the beginning, but a film with a big heart that I wound up understanding... more or less. There are some story holes. Decent, though.
Super Reviewer
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