Shame Review

Sex addiction hasn't had a great deal of coverage anywhere really, but in cinema, it’s had a particularly raw deal. The best thing that can be said for Black Snake Moan (2006) is that it’s the second best Samuel L. Jackson film to have Snake in the title whilst Choke (2008) was patchy at best. Thankfully, Steve McQueen’s Shame gives the subject the serious treatment that it deserves and the film is all the better for it.

Shame marks the second collaboration between director Steve McQueen and Michael Fassbender after the superb Hunger (2008) and on this form; Fassbender might have his wish of finding his very own Scorsese/De Niro relationship. Whilst the duo still have some way to replicating the sort of hit rate that saw films like Mean Streets (1973) and Taxi Driver (1976) emerge from the seventies, Raging Bull (1980) and The King of Comedy from the eighties and Goodfellas (1990) and Cape Fear (1991) from the nineties, the McQueen/Fassbender collaboration is already looking like a special one.

Shame follows the life of Brandon (Michael Fassbender), a good looking, successful New Yorker whose existence and social interactions are marred by his compulsive, lust for sex. This addiction soon spirals out of control when his equally damaged sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan) arrives on his doorstep looking for a place to stay.

Shooting in New York as a result of McQueen finding their addicts more open and helpful during the research stage of the development, the New York of Shame is both a paradise and a hell for Brandon, a city that allows him enough space to contemplate his addiction whilst simultaneously proving to be a feeding ground for his addiction as a simple commute into work establishes early on.

The early stages of the film establish Brandon’s daily routines which comprise on masturbation, work, visits from prostitutes, masturbation, perusing hardcore pornography and sexual encounters with women met at parties. These women find his honesty and attentive nature flattering when in reality his glare is exactly the same kind of stare of which predators look upon their prey with. Fassbender plays these social interactions with the same enigmatic distance that American Psycho’s (2000) Patrick Bateman displays when floating from party to board meeting.

Brandon’s pristine white walled, sterile living space functions as his own prison, a home where he can indulge his addiction free of any form of judgement. The arrival of Sissy both brings up anxious feelings from their childhood, but importantly, forces Brandon out of the apartment, into an office relationship which provides one of the best scenes in the movie; a brilliantly awkward dinner date.

Fassbender carries the film and it’s a fascinating, ballsy (excuse the pun) performance and Mulligan is equally intriguing as his sister. As you would imagine, the role of a nymphomaniac requires Fassbender to walk around starkers quite a lot of the time and to any of his growing female fan base, yes, you do see Magneto’s helmet (I’m not proud that the line made it into the review but its typed now).

Shame is a film that hints at the history of its characters without ever explicitly stating any events that carved the damaged souls of the two main characters. Without even saying a word, glances, stares and body language tell everything you’d ever need to know about the troubled relationship between the two. The fact that these ambiguities only add to the fascination rather than proving irritating is a testament to the performances (neither nominated for a thing at the Oscars).

 Shame is a raw, deliberately paced look at the still taboo subject of sex addiction with a shocker of an ending and a mesmerising performance by Fassbender. Treated realistically with sex scenes that are never eroticised, McQueen has created an addiction film to rival that of Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream (2000).

Aside from a truly excruciatingly slow performance of ‘New York, New York’, Shame is a triumph; a difficult, memorable film that’s not easy to shake off. Fassbender’s performance almost rivals his work in Hunger and his Brandon almost makes it to the top of my ‘favourite big screen nymphomaniacs’ list.

For anyone keen to know, he falls into second place, just behind Woody Allen’s Harry in Deconstructing Harry (1997). I’d be lying if I said I didn’t sit through Shame hoping that Brandon would tell a hooker, 'They should put your lips in the Smithsonian.'