Shame (2011)

It is both to Shame’s credit and detriment that the film says just about all it’s going to say over the course of the opening montage. This sequence is some of the best filmmaking I saw from any film in 2011, as we follow Michael Fassbender’s character through the day-to-day routine of a sex addict. The rest of the film is more or less an extension of this, but the brilliance and simplicity of these first few minutes can’t help but make a select few later moments feel redundant. Shame remains a compelling and devastating film throughout thanks to the performance of Michael Fassbender, which many—rightfully—have singled out as a particularly egregious Oscar snub. Indeed, Fassbender is the best part of the film, and he is the reason that filmmaker Steve McQueen succeeds in communicating his ultimate message: addiction in any form is devastating, and the same goes for sex addiction.

Fassbender’s sex addict is Brandon Sullivan, a successful white-collar worker in New York City who would seem to be perfectly normal from the outside. But this film has little interest in looking at Brandon from the outside. McQueen observes him when he is all alone, and must indulge his constant need for sexual satisfaction. Living in New York, this satisfaction isn’t so hard to come across. He’ll occasionally pick up a girl when he goes out at night, but often he will just get a prostitute or… ahem… take care of it himself. Since he lives alone, he is able to go about his business without interruption. Then a wrench gets thrown into his routine when his sister (Carey Mulligan) invades and winds up crashing on the couch. Now he must satisfy his addiction behind her back.

There’s not a lot of depth to any of these characters, and while the simplicity of Shame is one of its greatest strengths it causes a few moments to ring a bit hollow. The best decision McQueen makes is that he doesn’t attempt to explain Fassbender’s condition. This is just how he’s always been, and no matter how much he tries to repress it, this is how it’s going to be. Shame captures this character during one of the more challenging moments in his life, as he winds up pushing everyone he knows away due to his frustration. But that’s how he likes it. With a great deal of friends and family constantly hanging around, it becomes much harder to live with sex addiction. His actions are not governed by his own personality, but instead how he may satisfy himself next. Personal, human connection does absolutely nothing for him. This becomes explicitly clear when he takes co-worker Marianne (Nicole Beharie) out to dinner. There is no satisfaction in it for him, and he is unable to have a good time. He likes her, but it’s never fulfilling.

All of these moments are captured through McQueen’s unblinking directorial eye, which is often brilliant but occasionally distracting. He’s quite fond of the long take—his previous film Hunger, which also starred Fassbender, famously featured a single 17-minute shot—and in scenes like the date it is quite effective in studying the performances and letting the discomfort seep to the surface. Yet there are other scenes, like when Fassbender goes out for a midnight jog, when the long take just feels like a long take for its own sake. He also throws in some unnecessary stylistic touches that don’t really add anything, but when we’re simply watching Fassbender grow slowly more alienated Shame is as discomforting as movies come. In all the right ways.

The basic thesis of Shame is that sex addiction is just as damaging—if not moreso—than any other kind of addiction. As you watch Fassbender sneak around his sister and coworkers to look at pornography, you could quite easily replace the magazines with a flask or an addictive drug. The modest genius of the film is that it doesn’t attempt to make sex addiction special, and it never even once takes the angle that maybe it isn’t so bad. (The subject of Shame has become joke fodder for quite a few.) Watching this film is a challenging experience. It is quite clear that Fessbender would pay a healthy sum of money to do away with his addiction and never think of sex again. But that’s the thing with addictions: they never go away. In a world where sex is around every corner, it’s not like you can simply hide the bottle away.

Grade: B+