Shame

Just as Bob­by Sands drew his last breath in Steve McQueen’s exquis­ite 2008 debut fea­ture Hunger, so each sharp intake in the British writer/director’s hand­some­ly made fol­low-up accen­tu­ates life’s brittleness.

Osten­si­bly, Shame is a film that attempts to pen­e­trate the psy­che of a thir­tysome­thing nympho­ma­ni­ac named Bran­don (Michael Fass­ben­der); a man whose every wak­ing minute com­pris­es a cyclone of shal­low inter­course and crush­ing indig­ni­ty. In its most explic­it moments, McQueen’s film is inescapably divi­sive, regard­less of its over­ar­ch­ing nuance. But Shame always seeks to offer more than hot flesh and quick thrills.

In a nar­ra­tive­ly sparse first act we swan dive into Brandon’s world – a mun­dane urban tapes­try of cheer­less streets, syn­thet­ic light and ster­ilised inte­ri­or spaces. This is New York City, specif­i­cal­ly Man­hat­tan, imag­ined by McQueen as a sleep­less cos­mopoli­tan bor­del­lo ready to cater for any vice, how­ev­er illic­it or insa­tiable. Brandon’s is sex, and he’s able to sam­ple a wide vari­ety of exot­ic flavours from an ever chang­ing carte du jour that’s fine-tai­lored to twen­ty-first-cen­tu­ry liv­ing. But the more Bran­don gorges him­self, the emp­ti­er he feels.

Whether mak­ing his dai­ly com­mute on the sub­way (where we see him glare lust­ful­ly at a mar­ried woman in a pur­ple hat) or ser­vic­ing him­self in his imper­son­al apart­ment, Bran­don is a man for whom rit­u­al reigns supreme. His domi­cile is mod­est­ly fur­nished, cold yet func­tion­al. Its pal­lid neu­tral­i­ty echoes his numb mood as he lies alone in bed, mouth slack and eyes glazed, skin drained of colour.

Only through music do we catch a glimpse of Brandon’s soul. A small pro­ces­sion of LPs dress­es a plain liv­ing room unit where Glenn Gould vari­a­tions pour from a turntable, cocoon­ing Bran­don in a thin film of pre­cious tran­quil­i­ty. It’s these same abstract notes that accom­pa­ny Shame’s most ele­gant­ly craft­ed sequence – a sin­gle track­ing shot of Bran­don jog­ging at night that is both auda­cious and hyp­not­ic in its exe­cu­tion. Giv­ing Bran­don a con­nec­tion with the mate­r­i­al in a tan­gi­ble way allows McQueen to empha­sise his remote­ness from the peo­ple clos­est to him. Or rather, per­son: his sis­ter, Sis­sy (Carey Mulligan).

An impul­sive, down-on-her-luck singer, Sis­sy crash-lands in Brandon’s life look­ing for a big broth­er who’ll pick up the pieces. But Bran­don sees her as a nui­sance, a threat to his care­ful­ly reg­i­ment­ed rit­u­al. He tells her in no uncer­tain terms to ​“stop play­ing the vic­tim”, dis­play­ing lit­tle in the way of empathy.

Sissy’s sig­nif­i­cance doesn’t ful­ly man­i­fest until an excru­ci­at­ing­ly cute scene in which she per­forms ​‘New York, New York’ in front of Bran­don, his boss David (James Badge Dale) and a face­less crowd in a high-rise bar, apt­ly named ​‘The Boom Boom Room’. McQueen pur­pose­ly keeps the frame locked tight on Mulligan’s face, cut­ting away only briefly to show Bran­don shed a sin­gle tear as Sis­sy silences the room.Whatever shared trau­ma this moment has evoked is unclear, but what’s appar­ent is that the ago­nies Bran­don and Sis­sy are expe­ri­enc­ing today have mutat­ed direct­ly from the scars of their childhood.

McQueen and co-writer Abi Mor­gan have fas­tid­i­ous­ly woven all the com­mon hall­marks of sex addic­tion – com­pul­sive behav­iour, a pre­oc­cu­pa­tion with fetishised sex­u­al grat­i­tude, despair and dis­con­tent­ment – into Brandon’s per­sona. Most impor­tant­ly, how­ev­er, Bran­don is pre­sent­ed as a ful­ly func­tion­ing mem­ber of soci­ety and not just a hyper­sex­u­al deviant. Out­ward­ly he is a mod­el cit­i­zen; he pays his tax­es, tips his bar­tender, drinks milk from the glass. At work he’s tem­pered his addic­tion so that rou­tine trips to the men’s cubi­cles to mas­tur­bate are con­duct­ed with the utmost discretion.

Brandon’s pub­lic image is that of the con­sum­mate pro­fes­sion­al; immac­u­late­ly turned-out, adept at nail­ing client pitch­es and in-step with board­room pol­i­tics. But, real­ly, he is an unknown enti­ty to his col­leagues, keep­ing him­self at arm’s reach from every­one except those he is forced to engage with. His façade is so well pol­ished, though, that even when he’s caught he’s nev­er at risk of being outed.

His desk­top hard-dri­ve is filthy, loaded with pornog­ra­phy, but rather than enter­tain the truth that’s star­ing straight at him, David shifts the blame away from his num­ber one guy. He has no rea­son to sus­pect Bran­don might be respon­si­ble, of course. ​“It takes a real­ly sick fuck to spend all day on that shit,” declares David, but to his mind Bran­don is flaw­less. Besides, his own moral fibre is hard­ly Scotch­gard­ed. David shirks his domes­tic oblig­a­tions to scout for poten­tial one-night stands in trendy bars, and lat­er gets Sis­sy into bed with­out the slight­est hint of remorse.

Brandon’s beast requires such strict round-the-clock shack­ling that it’s inevitable his guard will even­tu­al­ly slip. Cru­cial­ly, though, he’s nev­er pub­licly rep­ri­mand­ed for his tres­pass­es. Were David not so blink­ered, Bran­don might have been dis­graced and let go, but he’d have soon moved on, kept his addic­tion hid­den and found work else­where. Pub­lic humil­i­a­tion might bring about tem­po­rary repen­tance but, as any addict will attest, true reme­di­a­tion must come from within.

It’s here that Shame’s thorni­est quandary comes into play. Sex addic­tion is a com­plex social taboo, but does Bran­don need cur­ing? His tumor­ous bur­den may well be self-destruc­tive, but in this instance it is not dam­ag­ing in a wider social con­text in the way that alco­holism and drug addi­tion can be. Those are social dis­eases that often (but not always) tran­sect the crim­i­nal spec­trum. Bran­don is a sex addict, not a sex offend­er. His crav­ings are sat­is­fied exclu­sive­ly by law­ful means.

This is the view McQueen projects, at least, and it’s one aid­ed by the fact that Bran­don is urbane and charm­ing – qual­i­ties Fass­ben­der oozes. But Brandon’s abil­i­ty to crack and joke and shoot and smoul­der across a bar doesn’t detract from his deep-seat­ed emo­tion­al detach­ment, and it’s these pained moments of iso­lat­ed con­tem­pla­tion where Fass­ben­der is at his most force­ful. If 2011 was Ryan Gosling’s year, Fass­ben­der is going to take some beat­ing in 2012.

Shame is a snap­shot of one man’s addic­tion, not the full 12-step sto­ry. We meet Bran­don some­where in the mid­dle of his jour­ney and we leave him with­out a clear sense of its end. Any flick­er of endur­ing redemp­tion is fleet­ing, each for­ward step loaded with the sink­ing real­i­sa­tion that Bran­don has prob­a­bly been here before. Dis­pos­ing with his stash of smut­ty mag­a­zines, a few sex toys and a lap­top that seems to be used sole­ly for live chat­ting might sig­nal the turn­ing of a cor­ner, but the dis­pos­abil­i­ty of the instru­ments of Brandon’s addic­tion is con­trast­ed by the knowl­edge that they are eas­i­ly replace­able in the promis­cu­ous world he inhabits.

In anoth­er of Shame’s great scenes, Bran­don asks out an attrac­tive col­league. Their body lan­guage sig­ni­fies mutu­al phys­i­cal attrac­tion but as their first date unfolds Brandon’s inti­ma­cy issues extin­guish any spark that might oth­er­wise have tak­en. While we, like Mar­i­anne (Nicole Beharie), are left to mull over a point raised at the restau­rant table – ​“Why are we here if we don’t mat­ter to each oth­er?” – Bran­don descends fur­ther into the sin­is­ter recess­es of his suf­fer­ing, cul­mi­nat­ing in a steamy three­some that owes much to the vivid, erot­i­cal­ly-charged palettes of Bret Eas­t­on Ellis and Gas­par Noé.

Soon after, a des­per­ate cry for help from Sis­sy goes trag­i­cal­ly too far and Bran­don appears to reach a point of clar­i­ty. Cathar­sis beck­ons. But in the next and final scene he’s back on the sub­way, eye-fuck­ing the girl in the pur­ple hat. Self-knowl­edge is the first step; get­ting off the train does not nec­es­sar­i­ly fol­low. That’s fine – there are no quick-fix reme­dies and besides, McQueen is hard­ly a suck­er for hap­py end­ings. Yet with no firm hope in Brandon’s future we can only grow indif­fer­ent to his plight.

Even in our best behav­iour we are all crea­tures of rit­u­al, each with our own skele­tons to sup­press. But McQueen holds a mir­ror up to his audi­ence in such a way that sex addic­tion begins to feel like a front. The impli­ca­tion is that this is a mis­un­der­stood afflic­tion, a mar­gin­alised dis­ease symp­to­matic of mod­ern life. Yet there’s no attempt to edu­cate or strip away the enig­ma sur­round­ing it as, for instance, The Man with the Gold­en Arm did for hero­in addic­tion in the 1950s. Resul­tant­ly, Shame’s impact is dulled.

For per­son­i­fy­ing Brandon’s addic­tion beyond the cook­ie-cut­ter clichés of bel­liger­ent misog­y­ny and lurid per­verse­ness McQueen should be applaud­ed. So too for his absti­nence from aggres­sive social pam­phle­teer­ing, which would sure­ly be a turn off. It’s a pity, how­ev­er, that this potent sub­ject mat­ter hasn’t yield­ed more thought-pro­vok­ing results. McQueen has made a bold and accom­plished film but, aside from a fear­less lead per­for­mance, Shame’s prize assets, like those of the call girls Bran­don solic­its, are superficial.