TIFF ‘11: Shame review
This is not the type of movie usually playing to a packed house but that’s part of the magic of the Toronto International Film Festival: sitting in a theatre with Gus Van Sant, James Franco and 2000 other people all watching Michael Fassbender fuck everything. “Shame,” the sophomore film from British visual artist turned director Steve McQueen (no relation) stars Fassbender as Brandon, a 30-something advertising executive in Manhattan whose sex addiction begins to spiral out of control. His life becomes complicated when his sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan) drops in to stay with him. It may sound like a joke but the picture is a raw, powerful, dramatic character portrait and the strongest film I saw at TIFF this year. It was recently picked up by Fox Searchlight after Fassbender won the Best Actor prize in Venice (where the film premiered) and will likely see a release by the end of the year.
We follow Brandon through his days and nights of sexual escapades and Fassbender lays it all out there. His character is ugly, damaged and you can’t stop watching him as he continues down his self-destructive path. He and McQueen have found wonderful collaborators in each other. The film is shot beautifully and precise with long takes, careful framing and amazing performances. It doesn’t spell anything out for you but doesn’t drag on either. As it builds to it’s “Requiem For A Dream”-esque climax, it could very well do for sex addiction what that film did for heroin. (Scare a lot of people off, apparently being a sex addict is not glamorous.) The film is frank in it’s depiction of sexuality, (both of it’s stars go full frontal) and it’s all but assured to receive an NC-17 rating. You would think that a film like this would be made to chase controversy but it doesn’t feel like that at all. McQueen and Fassbender together seem like they’re chasing after some truth, trying to explore what drives this person.
I hadn’t seen McQueen’s first film, 2008’s “Hunger,” until a few weeks ago but am now convinced of what an amazing and distinctive filmmaker he is. That feature, about the IRA hunger strike, gave its star Fassbender his breakout role. In the 3 years since he’s worked with world class directors like Quentin Tarantino, Ridley Scott and David Cronenberg and even starred as Magneto in the latest X-Men installment. The German/Irish actor is obviously a huge talent and yet he’s still at the point in his career where you have to run down his films to someone to describe who you’re talking about. (“He’s Magneto?” “He’s the British guy from ‘Inglourious Basterds’?) But not for long. I’m having a hard time describing the film to people now, but come January everyone will be talking about it.
