In the opening moments of Shame, we're introduced to Brandon(Michael Fassbender), a rugged, good looking Manhattanite on a crowded subway train like any of thousands of other people. In an instant, he catches the eyes of a beautiful redhead in the seat across from him. They lock eyes just for a moment, at least for her. But Brandon is transfixed, not by her beauty although that is a part of it. His piercing gaze is merely a window into his uncontrollable sexual id, as he imagines making love to this woman to satisfy his craving. He seems to almost be trying to will her into joining him in his lurid fantasy. The woman, who is very clearly married, is at first flattered, aroused, disgusted, and ultimately ashamed at the emotions swirling within her.
Shame, the brilliant, hard hitting film by British director Steve McQueen, and starring his right hand man Michael Fassbender, is a movie about addiction and the way it eats at a person's soul. For months, many have been childishly excited by the NC-17 rating, and the "promise" of graphic nudity and sex. There is nudity, and sex permeates every single frame, but this isn't a movie about those things, and McQueen shows remarkable restraint in the way he presents them. Sex is merely the avenue Brandon takes to try and fill the empty void that has grown and festered within him, but it could just as easily have been drugs or alcohol.
Although he spends every waking moment of his day thinking about sex and how to acquire it, Brandon isn't a man who treats women badly. In fact he's rather charming and charismatic. Women tend to flock to him rather than the other way around. When in public he seems rather normal, but deep down there's a fire raging within him that can't be stoked. When sex isn't readily available, he goes out and buys it. He has porn everywhere, on his laptop and even his work computer. There is nothing about him that doesn't revolve around sex in some way. It's not a problem to him and doesn't effect is day to day life, making him sort of a functional drunk. Until Sissy(Carey Mulligan) starts leaving desperate messages on his phone. She wants him to answer, but for whatever reason he won't do it. At first we think she's just some woman he slept with and ignored, but that's not the case. Sissy is his equally troubled sister, a struggling lounge singer trying to find her way. Unlike Brandon, she hasn't completely given in to her addictions, and battles to try and connect with people in a way her brother has given up on. Their relationship is awkward, not typical for siblings, and hints at a disturbing shared childhood.There's an almost incestuous scent to their relationship.
The arrival of Sissy puts Brandon over the edge as she continually cramps his style. She wants and needs his affection, to feel that familial bond "normal" people have, but the more she craves it the more disgusted he seems to be with her. The burden of responsibility for his sister sends him over the edge and feeling trapped.
Fassbender gives a performance that will certainly have him on the minds of Oscar voters, in a role that's both showy and yet minimal at the same time. He presents Brandon as an empty vessel, with a deep sadness lurking behind his eyes. At times you can sense that he realizes the depth of his own misery, yet other times he has the look of a man in total acceptance of it. Think of how terribly this role could have gone if played badly by a lesser actor, who would have presented Brandon as robotic. He's not emotionless, but uses what interpersonal skills he has purely for predatory reasons. It's a complete different performance than what Fassbender gave in A Dangerous Method, another film dealing with sex, but purely on an intellectual, analytical level. Carey Mulligan is equally strong as his fractured, forlorn sister, who hides her emotional and physical scars under a bright and sunny wardrobe. When she belts out her soulful performance of "New York, New York" in cheap little bar while Brandon strains to ignore her, you realize not only is she a marvelous actress but she can sing circles while doing it. When McQueen learned that Shame had earned an NC-17 rating, he said that he took it "as a badge of honor, not a scarlet letter". His goal is to make the rating usable, viable again for American audiences. If that was truly his purpose, then he has more than hit the mark. With the exception of one uncomfortably close nude scene with Mulligan, McQueen keeps the sex and the nudity mostly at a distance. He smartly chooses not to revel in it, as that would dramatically cheapen the entire film and the brave performances by his two stars.
There are no happy endings here. Or rather, there's no attempt to find one in Abi Morgan's script. This isn't meant to be a story of one man's salvation, but at a man who will never know how to achieve it. It's the sort of insightful, unflinching look that Morgan failed to strive for in her Margaret Thatcher biopic, The Iron Lady. That's a review for another day. Here she's nearly flawless, with the exception of the finale which goes a little crazy and overwrought, so much so that it doesn't jibe well with the tone of the entire film.
A good many folks have justifiably become very excited at the potential films by the pairing of Danish filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn and Ryan Gosling, but they have nothing on the promise of McQueen and Fassbender. After 2008's ferocious Hunger, and the fearlessness of Shame, we can look forward to years of groundbreaking, entertaining work.
