Of Shame and Shamrocks

Why shamrocks? Michael Fassbender can tell you. He’s the star of the new year’s most compelling drama – and only drama as far as I can tell – about sex addiction, and he claims an Irish heritage. The Irishman’s had a good 2011 too, with roles in Jane Eyre, X-Men: First Class, and more recently A Dangerous Method starring Keira Knightly as the muse for a youthful Carl Jung vs. Sigmund Freud, certain to appeal to young women who make up the majority of Psych majors. Only the middle flick is something anyone on your block has probably seen, but it’s not the kind of work that would get Fassbender any attention from film festival aficionados prone to lavishing praise upon the artfully lascivious.

And attention is just what he’s getting for his NC-17 rated Shame, a movie that manages to make addiction to sex look about as pleasant as a runaway train ride through hell (or Alaska, as Jon Voight can attest). This isn’t to say that addiction is or should be expected to be pleasant, but there’s a reason the addiction occurs in the first place. And in the case of sex addiction, the “disease’s” redeeming qualities seem obvious. But don’t tell that to director Steve McQueen.

Unlike the film version of Chuck Palahniuk’s Choke, which gave viewers a relatively wacky, zany, and no-holes-barred comedic take on a sex addict’s life, Shame is relentless in its supposedly realistic revelation of the despair that drives some people (usually men, apparently) to rock out with their… lack of inhibition out. Fassbender’s character is Brandon Sullivan, a yuppie who appears to work in some kind of creative class occupation in Manhattan and has a posh though petite apartment to prove it. Fassbender is 34, but the lines on his chiseled face make him appear closer to 40. Luckily for a man, sex addict or no, appearing to be older than your years does little to get in the way of wooing big city betties eager to share a night with an attractive fella — especially if he’s willing to pay for it. And pay for it Brandon does. He’s seen on multiple occasions recruiting the special powers of call girls and prostitutes. In one scene, after an attempt at coitus with a “real girl” (a co-worker) goes awry due to his inability to summon any special powers of his own, a backup plan involving exhibitionist hooker sex finally manages to bowl him over. Brandon’s trouble with performing in a more traditional context is testimony to how far removed his idea of sex is from any actual human bondage (though perhaps “bonding” would be a better choice of words). He’s down to a level of “wham, bam, thank you ma’am” that would make even a player wince.

This disposition to dispose comes through in a scene wherein Brandon and his date (the co-worker) are discussing couplehood. A man well into adulthood, he reveals that his longest relationship ever was four months. Visibly surprised, she tells him that one has to work at it, that this whole relationship business takes perseverance, to which he glumly replies: “I did work at it. For four months.”

Brandon’s sister, aptly named Sissy, is played by the spritely Carey Mulligan from Drive. Sissy’s a lounge singer and all around good time gal, proving her vocal chops in a scene where she manages to belt out the drowsiest and most long winded version of Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York” you’ll ever hear. (It’s probably no coincidence that her similarly adorable rival Michelle Williams got the part of Marilyn Monroe in My Week with Marilyn.) But it’s heart-tugging enough to bring a tear to Brandon’s eye, showing that deep down he’s as human as anyone else, and about more than just ogling married women on the subway (a scene that plays out twice, bookending the film). Their relationship is strained, to say the least, and apparently the result of some early family drama, 99% likely of a sexual nature. They never say. But it inspires Sissy to remind Brandon that “they aren’t bad people,” “they just come from a bad place.”

Sissy’s arrival in Brandon’s life throws his previously orderly albeit sleazy lifestyle into disarray. Sissy turns the place into her private playpen, even sexing it up with Brandon’s boss while Brandon is forced to listen, an annoyance for most of us, but for him an avalanche of cognitive dissonance.

The climax of the film, so to speak, comes when Brandon goes on an all-night (fass)bender through the city’s seedy underbelly. After getting beaten bruised but not broken for nastily chatting up the young lady friend of a toughie, Brandon descends into desperation, getting his rocks off at a gay club across the street in one of those red-light-soaked back rooms. This scene in particular provoked the disapproval of Jenna Sauers at Jezebel. She complains:

Depicting a straight character seeking out a homosexual encounter as a sex addict’s ‘rock bottom’ is the film’s one sour note; I found it politically problematic bordering on homophobic, and frankly a cheap move from an otherwise highly subtle and carefully observed story of human relationships, and human failure.

Homophobic? Putting that equally politically problematic word aside, Sauers is just seeing what she wants to see. Who says that scene is rock bottom? I seem to recall a follow-up tryst with two ladies of the night involving expressions of pain on Brandon’s face suggesting torture of the kind inflicted by the Nazi enemies of Fassbender’s character from Inglourious Basterds. But that’s just me.

Shame is a film that is uncomfortable to watch in more ways than one. If the sex doesn’t make you squirm, Brandon’s not atypical and alienated lifestyle will. This critic gives it four out of five Viagra pills.

Mupetblast writes at Entitled to an Opinion.