The film is rated 18 due to extremely explicit sex scenes. However, I haven't seen a film this sex-filled and yet so unerotic since I sat through Killer Bitch. We meet Brandon (Fassbender) as he goes through his daily routine in his immaculate flat. His eyes meet a pretty redhead's on the subway and at first she is turned on, then gradually repulsed. She gets off the subway train and Brandon gives chase, eventually losing her. If this were a different film this scene would be accompanied with plink-plonk-laugh-laugh music and the red-head would be played by Emma Stone, eventually being his salvation. Shame isn't that film though. Brandon's endless search for la petite mort means he can fall in love with any number of women in a day for just a few minutes. His life is a series of encounters with random women, with prostitutes and with pornography.
When he returns to his clinical apartment one evening he finds Sissy (Carey Mulligan), his wayward sister. He walks in on her in the shower and they both scream. But she doesn't cover herself up. When he passes her a towel she just dries her face and makes no attempt to cover her nudity. It's a scene which is just right of centre...all the dialogue makes sense but something just isn't right. Sissy wants to move in while she chases her singing career all the same. She is clearly as troubled as her brother - early on we hear her literally begging a presumably former lover to see her over the phone and there are criss-crossing self-harm scars on her arms.
She turns out to be a bewitching singer, performing a stripped-back, melancholy version of New York New York in a nightclub. While Brandon's ridiculous boss David (James Badge Dale) whoops and cheers at Sissy's performance Brandon shows a sad pride. He is certainly proud of her but his agony is palpable. Director Steve McQueen's use of long, unbroken shots force you to confront the characters, often in extreme close-ups. Later, when David and Sissy loudly have sex in Brandon's bedroom he shows extreme discomfort but says nothing as he paces his living room then goes out running.
Why are these siblings so troubled? A terrible childhood is hinted at numerous times. At one point Sissy tells Brandon, "we're not bad people, we just come from a bad place". The 'place' in question is never revealed and recovery of either of the characters isn't promised either. When Brandon begins to fall for a work colleague he finds he cannot have sex with her despite her deliberately being played by an actress more vivacious and beautiful than any of the women we've seen him with before. The depths he eventually sinks too are quite disturbing. His nihilism appears to know no bounds.
There were elements of other film characters in Brandon. I couldn't help but see a little American Psycho's Patrick Bateman. There was also a fair amount of Travis Bickle. Brandon often does what he thinks he ought to do in an effort to blend in with everyone else. When he begins to fall for Marianne at his office he violently and obsessively clears his flat of all sexual material. He even bins his laptop when just deleting files would be enough - he sees it as cleansing himself.
Shame is an intelligent film that left me with many questions and stayed with me for days after I saw it. Deliberately ambiguous, it is beautifully written, acted and directed. Fassbender and Mulligan are incredible in very difficult roles. Apart from in a tense argument filmed in one shot near the film's close where Mulligan's accent goes a little English they are faultless in their depictions of Sissy and Brandon. We can only guess where these characters will end up but I certainly cared enough to hope for them.
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