Shame is the least sexy movie about sex you’ll ever see —  and that’s the way mastermind director Steve McQueen intended it. Less soft-core porn and more emotional turmoil, Shame is a character study about a man whose sex addiction serves as an outlet for his unspoken agonies. 

Brandon Sullivan (Michael Fassbender) is a  youngish Manhattanite who just so happens to be a sexual sociopath. We’re talking a filthy hard drive on his work computer, hookers on speed dial, pay-per-minute video girl subscriptions, mountains of explicit paraphernalia, regular wank sessions at the office and dirty talk in seedy bars to ensnare his next bed buddy. His addiction has stripped his personality of all recognizable human feeling, which means Brandon has sex like an alcoholic drinks: frequently, compulsively and indiscriminately (seriously — anything on two legs). And just like your drunk Uncle Harold, Brandon partakes in his indulgence for the sake of release rather than pleasure. For a practiced player like him, sex is a game he readily wins. But if sex holds no intimacy, no enjoyment for Brandon, is it inherently worthless? If so, Brandon’s relentless pursuit of sex confirms his own worthlessness and, worse yet, his shame.

 Sullivan is the zombified doppelganger of American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman. And just like Bateman, Brandon shares the same fastidiousness. Both yuppies are tireless clean freaks (Brandon always wipes down the toilet he masturbates into) with impersonal city apartments (all white walls and clean lines). Moreover, Fassbender has the innate serial killer likeness of Christian Bale. Ever notice that the people who play sociopaths have the same hollowed cheeks? Seriously, Fassbender and Bale are both handsome in that hard-planes, sharp-angles, hollowed-cheek kind of way that makes it difficult to differentiate their predatory glances from their seductive stares. They’ve got that Chuck Bass/Ed Westwick cool control that reads like they’re either going to have sex with you or slay you (or both) at any given moment. 

On top of Fassbender’s appropriate appearance, his performance is superb and nearly unmatched by his co-star, Carey Mulligan. Mulligan plays Sissy, Brandon’s wayward younger sister who is arguably less damaged —  and that’s saying a lot. Considering her intense neediness, craving intimacy where her brother eschews it, Sissy’s depressive streaks, self-mutilation and financial instability should make her the “fail” sibling, but she possesses some serious talent. Sissy is a singer and not a shitty one. When Brandon and his boss visit the Boom Boom Room (which would be the perfect name for a strip club if it weren’t already a luxe, upscale lounge), Sissy is the night’s talent. Here, Mulligan sings a slow, slow version of “New York, New York.” It’s all very Lana Del Ray in a wan Hollywood longing type of way, if Lana Del Ray had even half of Mulligan’s effortlessness. Her voice is heartbreaking, even causing Brandon to shed a single tear. It’s unclear, though, whether he is shocked at hearing something so beautiful come out of someone so broken or because the song’s message speaks to his sister’s own desire for escape. 

Shame, for all its displays of honesty (read: nudity), remains curiously coy. McQueen most likely believes these open ends are a welcome absence of closure. For instance, while it is obvious that Brandon’s addiction is creating his own personal hell, it is not clear what has caused his addiction. This hell was maintained by him but not created by him. The only hint we receive is from Sissy in a weepy voicemail: “We’re not bad people; we just come from a bad place.” 

Things only get more confusing. McQueen foregoes an obvious conclusion, which may be understandable considering the cyclical nature of addiction; addicts live day-by-day. Some scenes seem to hang in the air. When Brandon hears Sissy having sex with his married boss in the next room, he goes mental. He pulls his hair, slams the wall, crouches in fetal position and then suddenly, his pants are off. He’s stripping his suit and it’s unclear whether this sex addict is about to do the messed up thing and jack off to his sister’s moans. Luckily, Brandon is only changing clothes to go for a run around midtown, but McQueen is unrelenting and though we refuse to think about it, he laces other moments in the film with traces of incest.

Brandon and Sissy’s relationship is one of give and take: Sissy does all the giving and all the taking and Brandon does neither. McQueen shows here that Brandon’s intimacy issues reduce his only form of communication to sex. Tellingly, when he beds a co-worker he genuinely likes, in the heat of pre-coitus, Brandon asks if her underwear is vintage — the same term Sissy uses to describe her hat in a rare moment of camaraderie between the siblings. The word association between the two scenes is sly. Though Brandon’s brain hasn’t yet registered the scene’s unusual tenderness, his dick certainly has and suddenly this hotshot is having performance issues.

Though some lambast McQueen for his so-called self-masturbatory style (pun intended),  the audience benefits from his  lingering. Yes, McQueen makes some scenes uncomfortably long and uncomfortably slow. Yes, he teases to some moviegoers looking for a tidy denouement, but overall his stylistic uncertainties in his filmmaking have served to create wonder and subtlety. His purposeful coyness  certainly crafts a more intense psychological experience.