Review of Shortbus (2006) by Thomasf. — 15 Oct 2006

This joyful and hopeful movie uses sex as a metaphor for the awkwardness and clumsiness of life. Yet sex is also depicted as art, as liberation and as part of the solution to the deep yearning of the soul.

It's a beautiful motif because the sexual acts are not judged by their "propriety" but rather by their ability to get to a deeper meaning in our lives. Of course there's a gentle mocking of therapy as a "shortcut" but also as another metaphoric language that tends to lose its place without a firm grounding in the here and now.

The movie is explicit, but the sex is actually quite beautiful in its transgressiveness. Critics who get stuck on the superficial message will be making the same mistake that critics of Crash made -- a form of critical synecdoche where the parts are substituted for the whole.

In Shortbus the sex tells us about how we treat one another and urges us away from selfishness or even an exaggerated sense of nobility. These are rejected for a wholesome return to libido as being only a part of a rich and poetic life (despite superficial appearances to the contrary).

This film is also quite funny. Go see it for yourself.