Review: Shame

Directed by: John Madden

Written by: Steve McQueen & Abi Morgan

Starring: Michael Fassbender, Carey Mulligan, James Badge, Nicole Beharie, Alex Manette

Rating: [3.5/5]

Enjoying elements of life in moderation always stands as the goal everyone should strive for but when battling with addiction this tenet becomes difficult to actually stick to. Of all addictions, ones regarding sex get the lowest levels of attention even if it can have a detrimental emotional and mental impact on the individual and everyone around them. Shame digs into this addiction in serious detail making for quite a devastating watch. 

Masturbating multiple times a day, soliciting prostitutes, and having sex with anyone he can, Brandon (Michael Sullivan) knows he has an issue but cannot fight through it. He finds himself unable to hold a serious relationship and when visited by his sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan), it brings even more disarray into his life as her issues compound with his. 

When learning about other’s opinions on this movie, someone called Shame the least sexiest movie about sex and that perfectly sums up the experience of watching this film. A story where it takes something as tantalizing as sex and moves it into pure objectification having lost all meaning of intimacy. It gets to the point in this feature where it can be described as nothing more than exercise as Brandon gets no enjoyment out of this other than feeding an addiction not allowing him to maintain a quality relationship with any woman in his life, including his sister. This destructive path allows for a conversation many don’t have interest in holding when it comes to sex addiction but this film refuses to let you look away. 

Part of that comes from the cast who deliver excellent work here. Michael Fassbender portrays Brandon and brings the face of a very handsome man with a well-respected job as an executive and living what most on the outside would say is a great life. Fassbender has a way of doing so much with as little as a smile and does wonders here in portraying this troubled man. He puts on this mask whenever necessary to give off this ideal of living this wonderful life while indulging in self-destructive sexual behavior. Then you have Carey Mulligan portraying his sister who deals with her own issues where you know they’ve suffered collective trauma in their past. Mulligan comes in almost as a wrecking ball at least in the eyes of Brandon and it further elevates their issues as they try to work through them. Mulligan’s Sissy lifts the mask off of this character unlocking a whole level to him he hides from everyone else around him. These two complement each other exceptionally well and we benefit as the audience. 

This film does not serve as the first time Fassbender and director Steve McQueen have worked with each other and their collaboration has rendered some gut-wrenching watches. McQueen dives right into the depravity of Brandon’s circumstance by employing these long takes where we just need to sit with Brandon and what he must be thinking. We do not receive the sanctuary of an edit to take us away from it. We must endure it. McQueen’s framing shows there’s no respite for what Brandon puts himself through, which includes up high overtop the New York City landscape or even in a back alley. It certainly brings us right into the action even if we don’t want to be there. 

Shame takes us into some dark corners but it serves as such a standalone and effective piece of cinema. Not many films have the gumption to display everything it does here with its explicitness as they attained the dreaded NC-17 rating. It proved to be unrelenting in its depiction of Brandon’s struggle and with good reason. This allows us to not look away and get right at the heart of what troubles these characters. For something lacking any sort of physical intimacy, this film delivers in bringing it on an emotional level to depict that everyone deserves to have at least one person they can depend on, even if that individual has their own issues they need to deal with. An absolute knockout even if I have some qualms with it but nothing worth writing out because of what it manages to depict and display for all of us to take in and ponder about.