This was good enough for me to not feel right giving it a rating of ‘wishy washy’, but I do think it wasn’t as good as the hype: themes weren’t anything particularly outstanding, or dealt with in any particularly outstanding way. That said, of course it’s worth consuming for the simple fact that it’s something different. I think perhaps its “ground-breaking”-ness was more about managing to attract mainstream attention as much as it did, than anything else — something that says at least as much about contemporaneous audiences as about the flick itself — but that’s no less interesting a reason in light of which to watch it.

A disappointment, despite handing out the best rendition of the American national anthem that I’ve ever heard/seen. This is a film mainly based on the individual relationships of two couples. The couples, individual of each-other, convene at a swingers’ place called “Shortbus”, where they experiment, break out and break down. Outside of this dome, human relationships are dealt with as would be expected of John Cameron Mitchell, who directed and wrote this film. It initially received its fair share of publicity because of the authentic (shock!) sex-scenes (of which there are many), but to Mitchell’s grace, they’re not really what’s most interesting about the work. This film is fair, but falls flat in comparison with “Hedwig And The Angry Inch”.