Passes the Bechdel test

Shortcomings

Name: Shortcomings
Released: 2023

2023. Directed by Randall Park, written by Adrian Tomine.

The Bechdel test

Bechdel score

3 / 3

Passes

Yes 1. At least two women
7 women characters. 7 of them speak.
Yes 2. Who talk to each other
In 6 scenes out of 115.
Yes 3. About something besides a man
In those scenes, our script parser found no man named. See the scene.

Second opinion

Not rated bechdeltest.com readers haven't rated this film.

The film

Ben, a struggling filmmaker, lives in Berkeley, California, with his girlfriend, Miko, who works for a local Asian American film festival. When he's not managing an arthouse movie theater as his day job, Ben spends his time obsessing over unavailable blonde women, watching Criterion Collection DVDs, and eating in diners with his best friend Alice, a queer grad student with a serial dating habit. When Miko moves to New York for an internship, Ben is left to his own devices, and begins to explore what he thinks he might want.

Released: 04 Aug 2023
Genres: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Rated: R
IMDb: 6.4 / 10
Metascore: 67 / 100
Awards: 4 nominations total
Elsewhere: View on IMDb

Starring, by lines spoken

Women
Men
Not in the cast list
Bigger name, more lines

Ben 398 lines, man
Alice 170 lines, woman
Miko 101 lines, woman
Sasha 66 lines, woman
Autumn 40 lines, woman
Meredith 39 lines, woman
Leon 11 lines, man
Gene 10 lines, man
Esther 6 lines
Jason 6 lines, man

Full cast, 24 people

Justin H. Min as Ben Tagawa
Debby Ryan as Sasha
Sherry Cola as Alice Lee
Ally Maki as Miko Higashi
Sonoya Mizuno as Meredith
Stephanie Hsu as Mrs. Wong
Ronny Chieng as Mr. Wong
Jacob Batalon as Gene
Timothy Simons as Leon Alexander
Theo Iyer as Jason
Scott Seiss as Lamont
Nikhaar Kishnani as Nina
Tavi Gevinson as Autumn
Boran Anh as Mrs. Lee
David Niu as Mr. Lee
George Deihl Jr. as Martin
Melanie J. Newby as Max
Jess Nahikian as Esther
Adam Enright as Jeffrey
Daniel Hank as Danny
Mike Cabellon as Ramon
Sheldon Best as Zoa
Randall Park as Ji-hun
Adrian Tomine as Adrian

Who talks, scene by scene

Lines of dialogue in every 3 scenes, start to finish. Women above the line, men below. 3% of lines come from characters we couldn't match to the cast list and aren't shown.

Women

Men

Scene 1 Scene 115

Hover, tap or tab to a bar to see those scenes: where they happen and who's talking.

Show the numbers

Scenes	Women's lines	Men's lines
1 to 3	4	6
4 to 6	8	10
7 to 9	18	17
10 to 12	7	6
13 to 15	11	20
16 to 18	9	11
19 to 21	31	22
22 to 24	5	11
25 to 27	23	20
28 to 30	7	8
31 to 33	1	0
34 to 36	27	25
37 to 39	14	13
40 to 42	11	10
43 to 45	12	8
46 to 48	17	22
49 to 51	25	26
52 to 54	18	17
55 to 57	23	23
58 to 60	5	12
61 to 63	8	7
64 to 66	5	8
67 to 69	7	5
70 to 72	29	20
73 to 75	6	6
76 to 78	8	8
79 to 81	3	14
82 to 84	15	15
85 to 87	20	16
88 to 90	7	0
91 to 93	20	38
94 to 96	8	0
97 to 99	11	8
100 to 102	7	6
103 to 105	0	0
106 to 108	2	1
109 to 111	0	0
112 to 114	0	0
115 to 115	0	0

The evidence

Straight from the script
Counted from the script and the credits

Tap an exhibit to open it.

Exhibit A: the passing scenes

The scene our parser counted as passing, word for word.

MAX: All right! Alice Lee has arrived! ALICE: Hey!

ALICE: Relax. MAX: Look who’s here!

ALICE: There you are! SASHA: Hi Alice.

MEREDITH: So that’s a goat gouda and that’s a délice de bourgogne. ALICE: Our gracious hostess!

MEREDITH: Right! No, I knew that. I mean, not that it’s crappy, but-- ALICE: Meredith’s working on a novel. ALICE: Terrible!

Exhibit B: every 100 lines

Out of every 100 lines with a known speaker, 50 are women's.

432 lines from women, 439 from men.

Women
Men

Exhibit C: who's in it

7 women and 13 men in the cast. 7 women and 9 men from it get lines.

Characters

With lines

Women
Men

Exhibit D: who gets heard

The first woman speaks at line 3 of 899. The longest stretch with no woman speaking runs 12 lines.

Every line of dialogue, first to last

First line by a woman
Longest stretch with no woman speaking

Words spoken

Women speak 51% of the words (4,178), men 49% (4,040). Women have 50% of the lines, so their lines run longer than men's.

Exhibit E: the test the other way

Two named men talk to each other about something besides a woman. It passes the reverse test.

Conversations between two named characters

Two women

Two men

Exhibit F: behind the camera

3 of the 14 people in these jobs are women. Across the whole crew, 27% of the people whose gender is listed are women.

Directed by: Randall Park (man)
Written by: Adrian Tomine (man)
Produced by: Margot Hand (woman), Howard Cohen (man), Eric d'Arbeloff (man), Jennifer Berman (woman), Randall Park (man), Hieu Ho (man) and 1 more
Shot by: Santiago Gonzalez (gender not listed)
Edited by: Robert Nassau (gender not listed)
Music by: Gene Back (man)
Production design by: Bill Boes (man)
Costumes by: Ava Yuriko Hama (woman)