“Shame” Review by Mikaela Schipani

Brandon (Fassbender) is a working professional in Manhattan. He has a well paying job and a nice apartment. Most people would refer to him as a sex addict. He has sex with prostitutes, he has sex with women he barely knows and he has sex with girls over the internet. When he’s not having sex, he’s thinking about having sex.

Brandon’s ritualistic lifestyle is interrupted by the arrival of his sister Sissy (Mulligan). Is it apparent that they have a complicated past. It is also apparent that Brandon resents the fact that Sissy craves his love and attention.

McQueen has a way of making an audience member feel empathy, disgust and heartbreak all at the same time. Brandon is most certainly not a hero, but McQueen doesn’t present him as a villain either. He is just a conflicted human being.

I really appreciate McQueen’s direct approach to his work. His films don’t contain a lot of fluff or superfluous editing techniques. For example, there is a dinner scene in Shame between Brandon and a female co-worker that he is getting to know. The entire scene was just one shot (McQueen did the same thing in his movie Hunger where he set a record with a 17 1/2 minute shot). As a result, the audience has no choice but to directly confront the situation at hand. We need to see why Brandon can’t develop meaningful relationships with women.

After a nightlong binge and several missed calls from Sissy, Brandon returns home in a panic. Sissy has attempted suicide. We see the love that he has for his sister, and we see just how hard it is for him to be stuck in his own skin. By the end of the film, we don’t know whether or not the recent trauma that Brandon and his sister have experienced has changed his ways.

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