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“I just don’t understand why people would want to get married”
“Brandon” (Michael Fassbender) We first meet Brandon on a New York subway train as he smiles and flirts playfully with a woman sitting further along the carriage and we depart from Brandon at the end of film as he looks at the same woman but on a different train and on a different day, this time without reciprocating her smile or her playfulness. Circle of life? Maybe. Doomed to constantly repeat the same actions time and again out of an in built circle of obsession, compulsion, addiction and personality disorders?
For Brandon, probably yes.
For me, this was/is a career defining performance from Fassbender as he characterises Brandon with such inner turmoil over his foibles and obsessions that I was crying long before he collapsed into an angry and rage filled weeping mess in the film’s final Act. He would go on to star in McQueen’s Oscar filled epic 12 Years a Slave in his third collaboration with the Director, adding to his already tortured performance as Bobby Sands in Hunger. McQueen certainly enjoys putting his star man through the performance wringer! But it’s here that Fassbender provides a portrayal of such raw intensity and emotion as he displays a character so tortured and unlikeable yet you can’t take your eyes away from the screen. Brandon is a successful, affluent and articulate New York Sales Executive who works for his low brow, almost mirror image boss “David” (James Badge Dale) and to the outside world he appears to be content with life who enjoys work and a party lifestyle outside of the office.
Yet underneath his laconic and purposeful exterior lay many secrets and none more so than his obsession and addiction to sex. He frequently masturbates (the office toilet cubicle isn’t even out of bounds) is habitually attached to his laptop and office computer for the purposes of constant pornography and his obsessions drive him to seek out any possible casual sex he can find, including prostitution. His addiction is driving him further and further away from day to day reality and he’s particularly remote from any friends and work colleagues as his selfish desires for instant gratification make building new friendships or relationships impossible. This is starkly evident and encapsulated in his relationships with women as a whole, especially with his sister “Sissy” (Carey Mulligan) and would be girlfriend “Marianne” (Nicole Beharie) and these relationships provide two of the film’s many pivotal scenes.
Sissy is a Jazz Club singer whose beautifully poignant and melancholic rendition of “New York New York” moves her usually stoical brother to tears and the brief scene is perfectly captured by Director McQueen. The camera at first focuses on Brandon and David sipping cocktails but is quickly cut to Sissy in a close up for the duration of the song before returning to Brandon (his Boss David is no longer important) and focusing on his tearful response to his sister’s sublime yet mournful performance. Wiping away a tear and leaving the table to get more drinks for everyone, he ignores David’s chiding of him for having a “tear in his eye”.
Later we find Brandon killing time before a date with Marianne and despite arriving deliberately late he is cold towards her as his actions highlight more of his disconnected psyche. He’s late and a little nervous but equally awkward at the social etiquette of dining and getting to know someone intimately and bemused at both an overly fussy waiter and Marianne’s innocent questions. Brandon needs instant gratification, not discussions of food and wine and of Marianne’s smiling questions on love and relationships. Her eager questions are dismissed in a deadpan manner but cheerfully she continues “What’s your longest relationship?”.
“Four months” is his monotone reply. “To commit you have to give it a shot” she replies. “I did” he laughs, “For four months!”
Brandon is a sex addict unable to control his bubbling obsessions and inner demons, who likes to silently observe before grasping for instant gratification and selfish fulfilment. He’s a lonely and disconnected outsider in a busy world who’s bemused that others don’t share or participate in his obsessions and Michael Fassbender portrays him in a performance of a lifetime.
Within Brandon’s world is his sleazy and opportunistic boss David and thoughtful, kind and would be girlfriend Marianne, but it’s Carey Mulligan’s portrayal of his unhinged and manic depressive sister Sissy who may break your heart. It is yet another magnificent character portrayal from Mulligan who would go on to star in Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive in the same year as Shame before starring in the Coen Brothers magnificent Inside Llewyn Davis two years later.
Shame is another Steve McQueen film that clearly isn’t for everyone!
However, this Film 4, UK Film Council and Lottery funded masterpiece has so much to be admired, from the Director’s deliberately slow moving camera which captures Brandon’s thought processes brilliantly through to returning Director of Photography Sean Bobbitt’s capture of the numerous reflections following Brandon throughout the film. Whether in his apartment, hotel, office or on the subway, they are always there to capture and mirror his tortured unease at the addictions and obsessions that follow him at every turn.
Thanks for reading. I hope this message in a bottle in The Matrix finds you well, prospering, and the right way up in an upside down world.