Shame (2011)

Much has evolved on Steve McQueen´s filmmaking since “Hunger” (also reviewed on this blog). Hunger is unhelpfully divided into sections, as if there were three different short films, binded by a intermingled story. Now, with “Shame”, the director presents us the argument as a whole, so the movie remains serious as the subject requires, but that kind of documentary dullness is past. No wonder the accumulated praises “Shame” has collected during the past year, to which this review only intends to add.

The main character is single, almost past the usual wedding age, and has a office job, meaning he is not a boss, neither is materialistic well succeeded. He could pass as a usual guy, unless for his good looks. The important fact for the developing story is that Brandon (played by Micheal Fassbender) is addicted to sex, to an extensive degree. He has to practice onanism at waking, at the office´s bathroom, and, when he doesn´t hire a prostitute, also at home at night. The audience begins to capture the evil consequences of this addiction when he is called upon his sister Sissy (played by Carrey Mulligan), as she is homeless and in need of a shelter. From this point onwards Brandon begins to show that what matters for him is keeping his routine, which depends on a fragile balance his sister does not belong. The (just) argumentation against such an addiction ranges from the incapability to have a  regular affair to the beating after having courted (using quite foul language) a committed woman.

 

He wants her out

Sex addiction is even more difficult to expose and consider, because, unlike alcoholism, it´s often taken as normality or, at most, as a machismo excess. This is why Steve McQueen got it right when he decided to depict an addiction seldom discussed. The only major slip he committed was on setting the main character to sniff cocaine by the middle of the projection. This is so because besides being artistic creations, when movies are about addiction (such as Zemecki´s “Flight”) they have the important role of exposing the human misery that comes along, as a warning for everyone. “Shame” is well accomplished with the exposure. But in associating Brandon with cocaine the director somehow fell short on the warning, erecting a barrier preventing the audience from feeling itself exposed to sexual addiction: very few people consider themselves capable of consuming illegal drugs.

Good looks isn't all

On the other hand it provides a detachment from the characters plight, thus providing a more comfortable (and psychological safe) experience. Still, if the cocaine scene were not there a bigger number of people would consider their own way of life (personal “mores”) more lengthly , becoming more aware and less susceptible to the depicted scourge of sexual addiction.