Review of Shame (2011) by Remmiz — 30 Jan 2015

Shame is a great example of a movie I wanted to love, but could only like. Despite strong performances from Fassbender and Mulligan and a promising premise, there are a number of smaller mistakes that ultimately detract from the overall movie. The film does a fairly good job of fleshing out Fassbender's character Brandon, but is not nearly as successful in explaining the relationship between Brandon and his sister Sissy, played by Mulligan. Consequently, Sissy's arrival ends up more as a way of showing how closed off Brandon is as a result of his sex addiction rather than providing an actual, nuanced relationship. Additionally, there are a couple confusing flash-forwards; the first is not explained until later and is the most odd, while the latter is quite effective once you begin to understand what is happening.

Ultimately, the movie is occasionally quite moving, but it just doesn't achieve that level of success throughout. During one of Brandon's binges, for example, at the zenith of his pleasure you see from his change of expression that he is really at the nadir of his anguish, an absolute slave to his addiction. But this fantastic scene is then followed up by another underwhelming one involving Sissy, illustrating the ebb and flow of success throughout the film. You can tell that McQueen wanted both a character study of man whose life is dominated by his sex addition as well as a gripping sibling relationship between two flawed characters, but in the end it seems that he bit off more than he could chew.