Shame

Summary:  Brandon is a man in his mid-thirties, living in New York with a pretty good job.  You'd think he had everything going for him, but he's wrestling with sex addiction.  His sister comes for a visit which makes his life much more difficult.  She is a singer who routinely visits when her life starts getting difficult, usually caused by a boyfriend. 

OaTs:  I saw this at the Toronto International Film Festival.  Before the screening, director Steve McQueen asked the audience just to "look at the film."  I found it a simple request, and one I was more than happy to oblige.  It was exquisitely filmed and acted.  There wasn't a terrible amount of dialogue.  This is because Michael Fassbender, who played Brandon, could tell you just about everything with his face.

For instance, there is a scene, my favorite in the film, where is sister, played by Carey Mulligan, is singing the old standard, "New York, New York" at a club in New York.  She begs Brandon to come hear her and he finally relents.  She sings it simply, quietly, and beautifully, unlike any other rendition of the song I have heard.  And the look on Brandon's face is something else.  I found it hard to tell what exactly he was thinking, but I knew what he was feeling.  I was equally moved by the performance.  Brandon had tears running down his face.  It was a beautiful piece of acting.

The sex addiction part is so interesting.  Steve McQueen is a British director, and when asked why it isn't set in Britain, he responded that he couldn't find anyone over there to talk about sex addiction.  He could find people in New York to talk about it, so he set it there.  It's a subject that I am unfamiliar with, because it is so hidden from the public.  It's funny to me that there were people in American more comfortable talking about it an less in the UK.  I've always found, in film anyway, that Europeans are more comfortable with sex than Americans.  I guess maybe it's the "addiction" part that screws them up.  I don't know.

It's not a film for the faint of heart.  There is a lot of nudity and a lot of sex going on.  I think I would have been more uneasy with it had it been gratuitous.  It wasn't.  It was necessary to tell the story.  You can't tell a story about sex addiction without showing sex.  It is rated NC-17 for a reason.  

I'm not sure that it's a film I'd want to see again, just because it is so emotionally draining, but I am glad I saw it.  I think it's easy for people ignorant on the subject to call people "weak" when they are addicted to something.  I can honestly say that I may have been one of those people years ago.  I finally opened my eyes to all of the different people of the world and have come to an understanding that there are things I can't attempt to understand for myself.  I refuse to judge others, as it is not my place.  And this is one of those films I will be able to recall as one that helped me to understand something a little better than I had before.

As Walt Disney said, "I would rather entertain and hope that people learned something than educate people and hope they were entertained."  To say that I was "entertained" by this film may be a bit of a stretch, but the film came across as more of a work of art than a lesson for the audience.  Every now and then, a film can come out that is more than a film.  I believe this is one of them, as it surely changed the way I see things.  And it do so without shoving a lecture down my throat, which I very much appreciate. 

Score:  8/10