Randall Park’s Plan For His Best Decade Ever

In January, the actor Randall Park premiered his directorial debut, Shortcomings, at Sundance. Adapted from Adrian Tomine’s celebrated 2007 graphic novel of the same name, the film is about a group of aimless twentysomething Asian Americans trying—and mostly failing—to grow up. 

Once the credits started rolling, the audience broke into eager applause, and the movie earned a distribution deal from Sony Pictures Classics shortly thereafter. 

But despite the film’s warm reception, Park spent the entire screening fidgeting in his seat, on the verge of a stomach ulcer. “It wasn’t fun for me,” Park says. “I had so much anxiety.” 

Some of Park’s unease stemmed from garden-variety rookie director quibbles, of course. “I kept seeing things and going, Ugh, I wish I’d done it this way,” he says. But he was also experiencing the trepidation that comes with putting something truly novel into the world. 

When it hits theaters on August 4, Shortcomings will represent the culmination of a 16-year journey for Park, who first stumbled upon Tomine’s book shortly after it was published and immediately dreamed of bringing it to the screen. “I’d revisit the book every few years and think, Gosh, this would make such a great project,” Park recalls. “But it never felt like it could be done, because it was the type of story it just didn’t seem there was any kind of support for in the industry. It was hard enough for Asian Americans to tell any story, let alone something niche like that.”

What makes Shortcomings so niche is this: Virtually all its characters are narcissistic, largely unlikable jerks. Chief amongst them is the protagonist Ben, played by Justin H. Min, a self-loathing Japanese American film snob who struggles with a fixation on white women—much to the chagrin of his long-suffering Japanese girlfriend Miko (Ally Maki)—and spends the movie in a downward spiral, caustically pushing everyone in his life away. Coming hot on the heels of Beef, Shortcomings is at the forefront of a new wave of Asian American stories that feel like they’re allowed to be about more than meditations on cultural identity.