In director Steve McQueen’s film Shame, being a high flyer in New York doesn’t harness fulfilling relationships when you’re a sex addict. Michael Fassbender who has graced our screens in numerous films such as X-Men First Class and Haywire over the last few months, plays Brandon. His restrained and stark life revolves around meeting women for one thing only – dispassionate and emotionless sex. Caring very little for the woman he engages with is essential. He is essentially commitment phobic and to build a relationship would be to risk letting his guard down and in his eyes feel trapped. Marriage appals him and the possibility that you could be with someone for any length of time is unbelievable to him.
Into this environment steps his singer sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan), the woman whose calls he’s been deliberately avoiding and deleting. She has her own problems of wanting love and feeling needed. Her forcing herself into his life unsettles him. A desire to change is triggered when he starts to feel something for Marianne (Nicole Beharie), a woman at work. The magnanimity of the situation challenges him. Then there’s his sister who wants to cling to him further, especially after he tells her off for an affair with his boss. Brandon experiences some rock bottom moments when he even seems to be punishing himself to the extreme.
The film takes you to some bleak places through the addiction convincingly expressed through Fassbender. Carey is the best we’ve seen her so far in a role that requires so much more of her. At the end of it all, you’ll still be wondering why he turned out this way. See the film without expecting clear answers.
Cherrydial 