Shortbus

I meant to post this review last January, but completely forgotten.
I've seen the film in it's last day of showing in Sydney, and I was listening to Scott Matthew's "In The End" (from Shortbus Soundtrack) - and so I remember to post this now.

So what is it about..

Shortbus is a film full of sex - real people having actual sex - in various gender permutations, which, in the currently divisive political and cultural climate becomes a gesture of radical purpose.

It's written and directed by John Cameron Mitchell, the same director who give us Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

Shortbus is an engagingly funny, emotionally honest, joyfully romantic drama exploring the modern relationships of a group of New Yorkers.

His characters are an agreeably diverse lot. Sofia, a sex therapist who loves her husband but has never had an orgasm; Jamie, a former child star who loves everybody, "especially cute people"; his boyfriend James, a former hustler turned Jacuzzi lifeguard; and Severin, an acerbic dominatrix who, like almost everyone else in the film, just wants to feel something. Together and separately, they converge on a weekly gathering called Shortbus, an underground salon "for the gifted and specially challenged"; a mad nexus of art, music, politics and carnal pleasure.

This film is thought-provoking, emotionally challenging, and sexually frank. So if you're the type of person who would go "yuck" in seeing such activity - then am afraid honey, this ain't the film for you.

Here, sex is treated as a facet of our shared existence rather than taboo material, and something that is refreshingly frisky and celebratory, not negative or dreary.

This film is genuinely fuelled with love. And not to be missed.
Catch it when you can either in Art Film houses, or on videos.