“I’m trying, I’m trying to help you.”
Something that we all love to see in films is growth. We like to see that our protagonist at the end of this journey, no matter how big or miniscule in scope, has shown some form of growth from when we first met him. So what happens when that growth is undercut by an underplayed moment in the film?
What is sex addiction? Sex is a primal aspect of life that is sought after and stigmatized in western society that it’s almost easy to say that anyone in this world with any kind of notable sexual appetite could be dubbed a “sex addict”. To look at Brandon and say he’s not addicted to sex though would be as if I we were to call Ben Sanderson in Leaving Las Vegas a social drinker.
The joy of this film doesn’t come from the sexuality of it – if you’re looking for that I’d point you towards the internet, it’s not hard to find – but rather the drama of Brandon and Sissy, taking all the little bits and pieces that are hinted at and shown in glimpses but never said and try to figure out what in their lives made them into their own broken versions of themselves and why Brandon has this closed off attitude towards his sister.
Everyone has a story and as long as the filmmaker can make the mystery of what these people’s story is then he can make a film worth watching. That is exactly what Steve McQueen did and he did it perfectly. The greatest example of which is shown in the film’s opening scene where we see an intercut story of Brandon’s (Michael Fassbender) morning and the previous evening involving him waking up in bed alone and going to work on the train where he has an alluring encounter with a woman across from him where a look is all that’s needed to convey everything between these two people who never speak to one another. The edit brings us bits and pieces of Brandon’s life while at the same time giving us insight into how more than likely this staring competition may just end up. Scenes like this give a wonderful example of how the smallest things can have the biggest impact by the method they are presented to the viewer.
As the film progresses we have the introduction of Sissy (Carey Mulligan), Brandon’s sister. The relationship between the two is rocky at best, for whatever reasons it’s almost unexplored exactly. The film alludes through minor dialogue moments where Sissy says “We’re not bad people. We just came from a bad place.” but never really saying out loud as to what their parents did to them to make them this way.
When we look at our main characters of Sissy and Brandon we’re presented with two people who are constantly needed to lean on something to keep them going. Brandon needs his sexual release and Sissy needs the attention and support of her brother. Sissy is constantly looking for her brother’s approval and to be a bigger part of his life, which all starts with her trying at every opportunity to cement herself in her brother’s life, but Brandon doesn’t make it easy.
The core question I feel that this film asks its viewers is if addiction is really a bad thing? Or to be more on the nose about it; where does need end and addiction start? We’re even treated to a whole speech from Brandon about how Sissy is a burden on him and how he’s so much better off because he’s independent with a home and a stable job but as is evident from what we’ve seen throughout the film that those things don’t exactly mean that you’ve got life all figured out.
In most films where we observe people who are compulsively always heading back to a certain need – drugs or alcohol – we see it completely consume them. In Shame Brandon is consumed and ruled by his impulses, but at the same time we never really see it bubble over in a way that ruins his life in the truest sense of the word. It definitely causes him to have problems creating genuine connections with people and comes from a place that hinders his relationship with even his sister, but if you were a coworker of his you probably wouldn’t ever notice him to be a man with a problem. Or maybe this is case of us being privy to the story before the problem becomes too big for him to handle.