WhenAdrian Tominebegan releasing the comics that became his acclaimed 2007 graphic novel “Shortcomings,” its sharp-edged characterizations of messy, unlikable Asian American 20-somethings living in Berkeley felt immediately groundbreaking. It was a book that said out loud the things that Asian Americans mostly say quietly among select friends: whether on-screen representation actually matters, what it means for a white guy to date an Asian girl, or for an Asian guy to date a white girl.

Tomine’s work had a blithe disregard for proper “representation,” likely because such a concept had yet to really exist in our mainstream lexicon. This is all to say that Tomine’s sensibilities can feel both sanded down and energized by a film adaptation in 2023, a time when ideas around identity politics have had a full arc in our zeitgeist.

In the opening scene of the book, for instance, protagonist Ben, a misanthropic Japanese American manager of a movie theater, scoffs as an indie movie at a local Asian American film festival is received with what he finds to be pandering acclaim. Set in the present day, the film — in what is “Fresh Off the Boat” comedic actorRandall Park’sdirectorial debut — opens with a similar scene, only now, that indie movie has been replaced with a glitzy, if cringeworthy, mainstream rom-com in the vein of “Crazy Rich Asians.” Park, one of the faces of Asian American representation in Hollywood, usesStephanie Hsu(“Joy Ride,” “Everything Everywhere All at Once”) andRonny Chieng(who actually did star in “Crazy Rich Asians”) in his spoof of the unprecedented 2018 hit, a fact brimming with juicy implications.

The difference between the movies Ben hates indicate that progress has been made. But has it? The film version of Ben (played by Justin H. Min of Netflix’s “The Umbrella Academy” and “Beef”) scoffs just as hard but for slightly more complicated, Twitter discourse-ready reasons: who and what exactly is being “represented,” and to what end, in a commercial rom-com fantasy? But this more topical, self-aware context means a certain acerbic, offbeat point of view is lost from Tomine’s source material. It’s a microcosm of the primary flaws to what is an otherwise funny, sturdy debut from Park.

Much of the slightly rocky transition from page to screen starts with Ben. A wannabe filmmaker, he can’t help but inject his negativity into everything around him, even as he refuses to acknowledge how much his cynicism stems from his own self-loathing. That includes tricky ideas around his race, which result in thorny and rather despicable ideas around dating that he often crassly admits to his friend Alice (Sherry Cola). He shamelessly fantasizes about being with a white woman, but claims that if an Asian woman were to partner up with a white man, she’s a fetishized object without any self-respect or agency.

His skewed notions play out in real life when he and his Japanese American girlfriend, Miko (Ally Maki), take a break during the summer. While Miko is off to New York, Ben stays behind and pursues a punkish white girl (Tavi Gevinson), then enters a fling with Sasha (Debby Ryan), a white grad student he wants desperately to be his manic pixie dream girl. Eventually, Miko ghosts him, leading Ben to travel to New York where he finds her in the arms of a white man (Timothy Simons).

The film, written by Tomine, remains largely faithful to the book, which was already filled with caustic dialogue primed for a slacker movie. Yet there’s a sense that Tomine’s world has become sanitized in translation. The film is just a tad too slickly shot and Min tends to smooth over some of Ben’s inherent unlikability. Some of this occurs with good reason — there’s a fine line between Ben’s self-absorbed sleaziness in the book and the irredeemable,incel-esque MRAsianscategory that we now have the language for and familiarity with to readily slot him into.

The shift certainly makes for a warmer indie flick with more heart and laughs. But it seems like there’s an altogether darker and more daring film under the surface. This dissonance is most apparent in a climactic blowout between Ben and Miko. It’s a raw, emotional scene where ugly truths are hurled at one another, and years of frustration come pouring out. It also feels like it comes from a different movie and not from the brighter dramedy presented by Park.

But there’s another reading here one can take. Just as the movie that Ben watches in the opening scene has changed in this film adaptation, so has the world, so has Tomine and, ultimately, so has the type of aggrieved Asian man that Ben is a stand-in for. This version of Ben might, despite his shortcomings, become the happy Asian dad that Park became for America, and maybe that’s for the better.

Brandon Yu is a freelance writer.