Shame

Michael Fassbender has a large penis. Surprise! Here’s the deal: if you read that sentence and blushed or giggled even a little, you may not watch this movie, as you will run screaming or hide under the couch within the first minute and a half. Are you with me? Great, let’s keep going.
The large penis in question is attached to one of the greatest Irish imports since Jameson, and I cannot find a non-sexually-explicit way to compare the two. This appendage is the cause of the NC-17 rating this film received, since everyone knows penises are scary and unacceptable for younger viewers, but vulvas and explosions and knife-rape (hi, L&O:SVU) are totally fine. That was a joke.
Fassbender, to me, will always sort of be the warlock he played on Hex, a good and dark, if silly, British TV program. But here, he is Brandon, a very human man with a very real addiction to sex. Everyone who laughed at David Duchovny last year and called him just a cheating scumbag, look out. Sex addiction is real, it’s gross, and it’s destructive. I’m not talking about the potential for disease, as, frankly, that’s pretty low on the list in terms of the ways it can ruin your life. The director, amazingly named Steve McQueen (opposite in every way from the action hero), shows us in great detail how sex addiction lays waste to Brandon’s life. It gets him knocked out, unable to perform when he actually cares for someone, his computer at work taken in for repair due to all the porn he’s put on it, and with an almost complete lack of actual friends, save for his dickhead boss.
The thing that Brandon has going for him is that he’s handsome. Very handsome. And very charming. With a soft Irish brogue. So, in several instances, he is handed what he wants (needs, really) without having to ask. What he certainly doesn’t ask for is his younger sister Sissy, an emotional time bomb and human tornado, to turn up in his apartment without asking first. But that is exactly what he gets, in the form of Carey Mulligan, who is terrific in a very grown-up role. Sissy and Brandon have what can loosely be termed a strange relationship. Not a sexual one, really, but an overly close and at the same time, completely separated one. They see each other naked, hear each other having sex, but can barely be in the same room together without tearing each other apart. They are both terribly unhappy people, as is made clear in a heart-wrenching scene where Sissy, in a beautiful Marilyn-style gown, sings a slowed-down, tear-inducing (in Brandon) version of New York, New York.
Two unhappy people living together is good for no one, and the weight of the siblings’ unhappiness is heavy on them both. They both clearly need help, but are each too self-centered to notice the other’s pain. Brandon has a day job that pays him loads of money, enough to live in a sterile white penthouse apartment in Chelsea, order high-class hookers like pizza, and book pricy hotel rooms in the middle of the day. He cannot, however, purchase love, as you may have heard. Sex is his form of communication. Try to have a conversation with the man and you’re out of luck. He’d rather go home to his gadgets that all bring him closer to women he doesn’t know who will do what he asks as long as they get paid. This is a movie about a man. There is sex aplenty here, of all sorts and not lacking in detail. There are boobs and butts and various crotch areas all over the place. All that said, though, this is one of the least sexy movies I have ever seen, and that is on purpose. See it for the acting. See it for the script and the directing. See it for the views of NYC. Do not see it to get off.