Shortbus DVD Review

by Kam Williams

Explicit DVD Explores Voyeurism and Exhibitionism at Manhattan Sex Club

Sofia (Sook-Yin Lee) is a sex therapist who has never had an orgasm, not even with her husband (Raphael Parker). Two of her clients, Jamie (PJ DeBoy) and James (Paul Dawson), are a gay couple in search of spicing up their lives with a ménage-a-trois, maybe with a young hunk named Ceth (Jay Brannan).

Caleb (Peter Stickles) is an inveterate Peeping Tom, while Severin (Lindsay Beamish) is a jaded dominatrix. The paths of these characters, along with that of many other sexual adventurers, cross at an "anything" goes salon situated in lower Manhattan called Shortbus.

Directed by John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig & the Angry Inch), this explicit flick unfolds less as a conventional drama than as a deliberately-shocking indulgence in every carnal fetish one might imagine, and then some. The movie takes its title from the derogatory term "short bus" which is often employed to refer to the special needs kids routinely ferried to and from school on pint-sized buses.

The obvious inference, here, is that the clientele of the Shortbus swingers' salon are similarly-stigmatized pariahs, social outcasts by virtue of their unconventional sexual appetites and indulgences. Luckily, they've found a safe haven to indulge their every fantasy inside this kinky oasis.

Director Mitchell's daring approach of allowing the camera to linger on his subjects' intimate moments of masturbation and copulation is certain to make the prudish blush. But those able to stomach the uninhibited ensemble's bizarre, burlesque behavior will ultimately be pleasantly surprised to find that these restless souls to be as much on a search for love as for satisfaction.

Fetishists are people too!

Excellent (4 stars)
Unrated
Running time: 102 minutes
Studio: Thinkfilm
DVD Extras: Cast and director's commentary, deleted scenes, trailers, and a couple of featurettes.

judythpiazza@gmail.com

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