Film Review: Shame

We like to think that it's not all moaning here at dfwmf, and not all slagging off other people's creative endeavours (however poorly conceived or executed some may be! Don't worry, those ones will still get a tongue lashing.) So here is a review of something that was more than worthwhile of feasting our eyes on and invading our brains....

If you’re thinking of taking a date to see the film Shame, you might want to think twice, though on the other hand it may leave you both feeling incredibly lucky in comparison to the film’s leads. The film reunites the actor Michael Fassbender with director Steve McQueen – an award winning combination with Hunger, and potentially, with Shame.

The film opens with Brandon Sullivan (Fassbender) naked in his apartment, ignoring a phone call from his sister, whilst we get flashback glimpses of his recent sex with a hooker. Next we see him on a train making piercing eye contact with an attractive fellow rider. She seems in no doubt as to the intention of his gaze, becomes visibly aroused and encourages his stare. He then follows her onto to the platform at her stop, but he loses her. We are beginning to get an idea of the driving forces in Brandon’s life. He likes the ladies, has no problem in attracting them it seems, but also pays for sex. But Brandon is no sleaze; he has a respectable job, dresses smartly, and does not hit on women in the shameless way that his married boss does. We discover that his work computer’s hard drive is packed with pornographic material; his home laptop is used for this purpose too.

So far, so normal, you might say, sounds like a lot of men I know, so what? But Brandon’s “normality” is called into question when his flaky sister turns up to stay. They seem to keep encountering each other in the nude, and her invasion of his privacy prevents him from his routines of sexual encounters and pornography. In one scene his sister is loudly heard to be in the throes of foreplay in Brandon’s bed with a man, and a tortured looking Brandon flees the apartment to pound the streets of New York. Brandon’s sister, Sissy, (Carey Mulligan) is younger than him, rather vulnerable and without roots it seems. She has a talent for singing, and bodily scars that hint at a past full of trauma. Is she bringing this trouble and trauma to Brandon’s controlled and rather isolated life, we wonder?

At times they seem like typical siblings, tender or teasing, but Brandon is never able to open up to Sissy, and is often unwelcoming and even hostile to her. The film gives us clues to the cause of Brandon’s inability to connect emotionally with women, and his constant need for sexual encounters. In one tortuous extended montage his quest for sexual encounters becomes reckless and desperate leading to his own shame and degradation. We wonder whether the likable yet tortured Brandon will ever escape his cycle of addiction.

Fassbender is in every scene of the movie, and is quite mesmerising, his face registering a variety of emotions, but his words never giving much away. The film is invasive of Brandon’s face and body; we see everything, his most intimate moments, yet he reveals so little with his own words or emotions we must piece together his story for ourselves with the evidence McQueen provides. It is a brave and utterly raw performance by the brilliant Fassbender that is frequently painful to watch. Mulligan is also good, Sissy’s vulnerability more visible than her brother’s. McQueen’s direction often feels clinical and cold, perhaps reflecting Brandon’s controlled, imprisoned life; there is little here to raise the spirits or warm the soul, yet Brandon and his sister still get to us, we feel for them and feel the pain of their story, wishing better for them. Maybe not a great choice for date night, but certainly a good choice if you want to see acting at its best, a sympathetic portrayal of addiction, with suggestions of what might cause such addictions, and the all too human story that sometimes bad shit happens to good people.