I'm going to be honest. Shame attracted my attention for the same reason that Basic Instinct and Color of Night did. Once people make a big enough deal out of something (particularly nudity or sexual content) I have to wonder why they're getting all fired up. This time around, McQueen delivered an absolute ton of nudity and sexual content, but most of us will have seen more graphic scenes out there. So, basically, I'm kind of left wondering why people thought this was something worth tittering over (no pun intended). I suspect that it's because most of the nudity is Fassbender rather than his female costars.
What Shame did that I didn't expect was that it made me think a little. At first, I expected that Fassbender's sexual addiction spiraling out of control was the shame. We watch the man have more casual, clearly unprotected sex than any person after the 60s should be comfortable with having. We watch him chase down women and we see him do things that even he clearly thinks are humiliating, but even that's not the titular shame... or so I think. I'm thinking that the true shame is the sexually charged relationship between Fassbender's Brandon and his sister Sissy. Both are clearly psychologically damaged by some trauma that was never discussed and together they form a twisted yin-yang in how they see relationships. Brandon seeks sex without connection, and Sissy uses sex in a desperate bid to form connections, no matter how shallow. When they're together, there's a lot of close talking, a lot of naked wrasslin, or long conversations held while one of them isn't dressed, and occasionally they share a bed.
While I found the story to be a little distasteful, I thought that the acting was powerful and intriguing. I'm now going to be surprised if Fassbender doesn't get tapped as one of the Academy's Best Actor choices this year... although admittedly there's a remarkable lack of competition based on what I've seen this year. But, I don't mean to detract from what is a truly great performance. Brandon is a complicated character, and I believed Fassbender lost himself a bit in the role. He's come a long way since Magneto.
I can appreciate this, and think it is a very good movie, but it isn't one I can enjoy. I don't really feel like Brandon's spiraling out of control is enough conflict to keep the story interesting. It doesn't impact his "other" life, and most of the drama uses Sissy as the eye of the storm. The story is also depressing. It makes me a little sad to see someone go through something like this, and there was no effort at levity to remove some of the melodrama from the film. See it once, check it off your list, then move on to something more fun.
