[Note: Contains spoilers]

I saw this movie a few months ago, and I’ve come to appreciate it much more in retrospect. It’s not an easy movie to watch. It’s NC-17 for a reason, and deserves that rating (there’s a lot of male, full-frontal nudity and sex scenes). It’s for adults who want to see a mature film about a man (played by Michael Fassbender) living in New York City with a sex addiction.

For the first hour or so, you meet Fassbender’s character, Brandon, and see just how addicted to sex he is: he has emotionless sex and masturbates constantly. He’ll sleep with a prostitute, and then immediately open his laptop to some porn. He’ll take breaks during the workday and help himself in the men’s room. It never stops, and it consumes his thoughts day-and-night.

Carey Mulligan does a great job as Sissy, his distraught sister, who ends up crashing at his apartment, much to the displeasure and annoyance of Brandon. Their relationship is complex, and it’s tough to tell who is suffering more, Brandon or Sissy: she’s a struggling singer whose life is falling apart, and he’s a sex addict whose life is falling apart. However, Brandon takes Sissy for granted, and continually rejects her emotional pleas for love. His addiction blinds him from seeing exactly how much support she needs.

There are many moments during the first hour which were a bit tedious (such as static shots of conversation from behind-the-back), and I often found myself wondering why we were being subjected to watch this. But in the last half hour of the film, the director, Steve McQueen, beautifully showcases just how far Brandon has fallen. After his sister’s attempted suicide, he suddenly becomes conscious of his own despair, and the awful state of his life weighs heavily on his mind. He feels trapped by his addiction, and wanders the streets of New York, aimlessly looking for sex. When he can’t find women, he goes to a gay men’s club. We feel the impact of the first hour, and Harry Escot’s score is integral in driving this point home. The strings first appear at the very start of the film, then the bulk of the film has no music, obviously a reflection of the emotionless, unsatisfying sex that Brandon is having. But when Escot finally brings the score back in, at the end, it’s a very powerful effect. You’re struck by how much you’ve been affected by the first hour of the film.

Director Steve McQueen spoke at the screening I attended, and he said that he thought the film worked because it forces the audience to bring their own experiences to it. I agree with that statement. To some extent, we all know what it feels like to have some sort of sex addiction, and this movie is all about the emptiness you feel from that. It works very well.

Shame is a unique character study. It’s not about a story. It’s about understanding Brandon’s feeling of being addicted to sex, and then empathizing with him when he bottoms-out. Fassbender’s performance is worth all the hype, too. When I walked out, I didn’t think I liked the film much. I guess part of that has to do with the shock-factor of seeing this theme portrayed so vividly in a movie. It took me a while to think about it, digest it, and understand it. Still, because of the mature content (and the fact that it’s a character study) I would recommend this only to the serious movie buff.

GRADE: A-

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Official site: http://www.foxsearchlight.com/shame