Some movies we see in order to escape from our daily lives, to have fun and forget our problems, to turn off our brains, much on some popcorn, and really enjoy ourselves. Shame, starring Michael Fassbender, and directed by Steve McQueen, is not one of those movies. This is a raw, disturbing character look into the life of a sex addict and the people he hurts in the process. It’s slow at times, meandering at others, and sexually explicit, and it’s also one of the five best movies of 2011.
Michael Fassbender Plays a Sex Addict Named Brandon
Fassbender plays Brandon, a thirty-something man living in New York City who is obsessed with sex. He doesn’t hope to just nail a pretty girl once in awhile; he pays for sex, searches for sex, watches porn, masturbates at all times during the day. One of the film’s most powerful scenes occurs early on, when Brandon makes eye contact with a pretty redhead on a subway train. It appears like they might be connected on some level, and will at least hook up in the next few minutes, but the woman finally stands up, in shame, to reveal a wedding ring on her finger. This doesn’t stop Brandon, of course—he races up the stairwell to find her—but she ultimately escapes from him and his sexual needs.
It doesn’t seem like Brandon is ever going to change his ways, but one element breaks the monotony of his day to day life, and that’s the arrival of his younger sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan), who appears without warning in his high rise apartment. He tries to accommodate her at first, but soon finds her presence impeding on his privacy, and his sexual escapades, and he tries to push her not just out of his apartment but out of his life. She’s screwed up, lost, depressed, and needs her brother more than ever. But he doesn’t care. He just wants his life back.
Steve McQueen Finely Directs This Terrific Piece of Work
McQueen, who previously directed Fassbender in the acclaimed 2008 film Hunger, has made a fascinating film with Shame. The old rule says a great film has three good scenes and no bad scenes. Shame offers one mesmerizing scene after another, including an awkward restaurant date, a hypnotic musical performance by Sissy, a heart-wrenching montage of depravity toward the end, and, of course, the aforementioned subway scene. It may not be an easy movie to watch, but for the more adventurous filmgoers, it’s an absolute must-see.
Fassbender is definitely one of the breakout stars of 2011 and has been featured seemingly in every other movie released this year. After standout performances in Jane Eyre, X-Men: First Class, and A Dangerous Method, Fassbender embodies this loathsome character from the first shot to the last. It’s at times a sexually graphic performance and other times a very quiet, nuanced performance. How many actors would have the tenacity to tackle a very naked—physically and emotionally—role like this? The Best Actor category is already crowded going into the Oscar nominations in two weeks, but here’s hoping Fassbender is noticed for his spellbinding work.
Shame is Easily One of the Year's Best Films
Equally good, and also quite shocking, considering the more innocent characters she has played before, is Carey Mulligan. Her intro scene is jaw-dropping, again for the sexual frankness, and anytime she’s on screen makes for an almost tangible electricity. Her character represents the possibility of a real human connection to Brandon—“We’re family; we look out for each other,” Mulligan says in one late pivotal scene—but her unexpected arrival seems to be too little too late. It’s not often that an actor appears in not one but two of the best movies of the year, and Mulligan has done it in 2011. If Drive is the coolest movie of the year, Shame is its dirty older brother.
Kudos to Steve McQueen and all of the cast and crew involved in Shame for bringing a film like this to the screen. From its difficult subject matter to its frank depiction of sex and loneliness to that dreaded NC-17 rating, which will unfortunately keep plenty of moviegoers far away from this picture, Shame is the kind of film that would have been much easier not to make than to make. But in this current age of cinema when everything is made with a cynical eye and aimed at thirteen-year-old boys, when ninety percent of the movies released are cookie cutter and come with a boatload of clichés, Shame is that unique masterpiece that refuses to be pigeonholed in any particular genre or three-act structure. It’s a miracle, really, and it’s a film not to be missed.
