Shame tells the story of Brandon Sullivan, a man of an unspecified age doing an unspecified job in New York. He has no friends, no romantic relationship, and barely any social life. He seems entirely disconnected from everyone around him, with the only hints of relationship being his son, whom he talks to on Skype, and his sister, Sissy, who drops in unexpectedly to stay at his place for a while, creating what little drama and conflict there is in the film.
The film is essentially a character study of Brandon, but unfortunately he seems to have no character, his entire personality having been given over to his transgressive sex life. Brandon watches a lot of porn, including the live-action internet kind. He has sex with a lot of prostitutes and the occasional stranger, but is unable to perform with a woman he actually knows. His rejection of intimacy is reflected in the way the film is shot – shallow focus, so that the background and other characters can’t easily be seen, and an emphasis on close-ups. We can’t see into Brandon’s mind, but the director (Steve McQueen) is insistent that we will spend a lot of time staring at his blank, emotionless face.
The only other character who gets any attention is Sissy. Her life is haphazard and messy, apparently veering from gig to gig (she is a singer) and from man to man. She breaks the solitude of Brandon’s apartment, walking in on him masturbating and finding porn on his laptop. She seems sexually messed-up, too, and her relationship with her brother is strange to say the least, but the nakedness and climbing into bed with her brother are probably more about a desire to return to the comforts of childhood than a serious suggestion of incest. Sissy is a much more interesting character than Brandon, vulnerable and more honest with herself, and it is a shame the film isn’t about her rather than her stone-faced brother.
The title Shame suggests self-loathing on Brandon’s part, perhaps even a desire for redemption, but there’s little evidence of it. At one point Brandon throws out his entire porn collection, including his laptop, apparently in reaction to Sissy’s presence in his apartment, but his life continues as before with no sign of a struggle to change his ways. In fact there is little sign that Brandon sees anything wrong with his lifestyle, it’s just the interruption to it that bothers him. He seems aware of his hypocrisy in berating Sissy about her fling with a married man, and reacts to the first line in the film, “I find you disgusting”, but otherwise he is cold and unreadable, showing emotion only when Sissy is hurt.
Some people will love this film as a study of the isolation of modern life and of sexual addiction. Others will come out of the cinema wondering what the point was and wishing they hadn’t sat through so many sex scenes. The focus may be shallow, the cinematography stylish and fuzziness may spare some of the details, but there’s no getting away from the fact that there is a lot of sex and nudity in Shame, including a threesome which seems interminable. The sex, like Brandon, is emotionless, and rather pointless. Shame is either a chilling portrait of isolation, or a dreary string of sex scenes and silence. You could see the film to make your mind up – but you may regret it.
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