![\"shameposter\"](\"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/shameposter.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nDirector: \u00a0<\/strong>Steve McQueen Shame<\/em> is the new Steve McQueen film starring Michael Fassbender as Brandon Sullivan, a wealthy white collar office worker who suffers from sex addiction.\u00a0 Although outwardly, Brandon is good looking and has a successful career, his addiction dominates his life and causes him to be insular and ashamed.\u00a0 He compulsively needs to have sex, craving it as a chain-smoker would crave cigarettes.\u00a0 He cannot go a normal working day without having to retreat to the bathroom to masturbate.\u00a0 It’s an awkward life to say the least.<\/p>\n The opening act of the film is an interesting insight into what this life with sex addiction is like.\u00a0 On paper, casting a handsome actor whose character is a wealthy New Yorker might sound like the sex addiction could be glamourized or hard to empathize with.\u00a0 It is a credit to McQueen and Fassbender then that despite all these supposed assets, we can see that the character of Brandon Sullivan is patently miserable.<\/p>\n Take Brandon’s high rise apartment.\u00a0 It looks like something out of a catalogue.\u00a0 It has little character or any indiciation that Brandon has hobbies beyond fornicating.\u00a0 And he can’t ever invite anyone to his home that isn’t a potential mate because the mearest investigation of a wardrobe, laptop or cabinet will uncover a mountain of porn and sex toys.\u00a0 As for Fassbender, he is one of those fantastic actors who can convey so much on his face without having to contort or exaggerate.\u00a0 We can read his expressions as someone who rapidly alternates between lust and shame.\u00a0 This often manifests as intense rapid bursts of the former followed by prolonged feelings of the latter.\u00a0 He lives a wretched life and I left sorry for him.<\/p>\n I remember when I first began to learn the drums and practised every day that whenever I listened to music, I would tune out from the other instruments and only hear the drums.\u00a0 So it is for Sullivan with sex.\u00a0 When he sees a crowd of people on the subway, he doesn’t see strangers, he eyes up potential one night stands.\u00a0 When he goes jogging at night, his eagle eyed vision immediately notices when there is a couple that can be seen having sex in an apartment window.\u00a0 Although he tries to live the life of a normal person, he is single-minded in his subconscious.<\/p>\n Brandon’s compact and carefully ordered world is turned upside down by the arrival of Sissy, his quirky yet troubled sister.\u00a0 She announces that she has no job or home and will be staying with Brandon for a time.\u00a0 Straight away, we notice there is something off about their relationship.\u00a0 It’s never really explicitly stated but Sissy’s comfort at being naked around Brandon and his discomfort at physical contact with her gives us possible clues as to the origin’s of Brandon’s disorder and Sissy’s disfunction.<\/p>\n Sissy has a disastrous impact on Brandon’s life.\u00a0 She clearly needs a caretaker and Brandon is unable to be that person.\u00a0 After Sissy finds work singing at a nightclub, she further complicated Brandon’s life by sleeping with his married co-worker in his bed.\u00a0 This pushes Brandon to escape his apartment and also try for a normal monogomous relationship of his own.\u00a0 It goes about as well as you can imagine.\u00a0 In one of the film’s few scenes where McQueen really indulges in humour, Brandon has a way too honest conversation with a potential girlfriend when he is out to dinner and this is punctuated by an incredibly awkward waiter.<\/p>\n Gradually things begin to spiral out of control for Brandon and Sissy.\u00a0 Both are in desperate need of a rock, of some form of stability and neither is there to provide it for the other.\u00a0 Both Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan are incredible and engaging in their roles.\u00a0 The scene that stays in my mind with Fassbender is the horrifying look of anguish in his face near the end of the film when he visits the brothel.\u00a0 It is absolutely terrifying.\u00a0 As for Mulligan, I first saw her as the naive young schoolgirl in The Engagement<\/em> three years ago.\u00a0 Her transformation into Sissy Sullivan here is remarkable.<\/p>\n Shame<\/em> is a difficult film to watch at times and the ending offers no easy answers.\u00a0 Brandon and Sissy are compelling flawed characters and the film is left open to interpretation whether Brandon finds his redemption in the final scene on the subway.\u00a0 I suspect that he doesn’t but thats just me.\u00a0 There is some pretty racy content in this film so you’ll want to put the kids to bed first and not put on the DVD when the in-laws are visiting but if you get a chance to watch it, Shame<\/em> is a film that shows a director and two fine actors in the prime of their careers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This film should swap titles with Sex and the 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\nWriter: \u00a0<\/strong>Steve McQueen and Abi Morgan
\nCast: \u00a0<\/strong>Michael Fassbender, Carey Mulligan<\/p>\nT<\/span>he first time I can recall hearing about sex addiction as a mental condition that needed treating was that news story about two decades ago when Michael Douglas checked himself into rehab for it.\u00a0 He’s only human after all.\u00a0 I think most people would become sex addicts if they were married to Catherine Zeta Jones. *high fives*<\/p>\n