For her, Shortbus becomes the quest for one, much like in dozens of porn films. Sonia (Sook-Yin Lee) is a sex therapist/couples counselor who has never achieved an orgasm. This is probably intended to say something about society's penchant for voyerism, although if director John Cameron Mitchell ( Hedwig and the Angry Inch) is trying to make a more specific point, he doesn't achieve it. Nearly everything in the movie is either being photographed or recorded. Technology plays a big part in these scenes and others. There are two 'money shots' and lots of positions. There are four protagonists, and we're introduced to them during an opening scene that features urination in a bathtub, domination, sex toys, auto-fellatio, and hard-core heterosexual action (with penetration). The storyline is juvenile and the characters remain poorly developed and incomplete. Although Shortbus doesn't work as porn (and I don't believe it's intended to), it also doesn't work as a serious drama. Such a division of opinion is expected when a filmmaker crosses the daring line of combining narrative with hard-core sex scenes.
Some think it's a masterpiece (or nearly so). With something as controversial as Shortbus, you can never get a sense of what you're in for based on word-of-mouth, especially when there's no consensus.
