Having a heart-to-heartless talk

Just caught Shame, British filmmaker Steve McQueen's icy, gripping portrait of sex addiction, and found it moving and mysterious in a way that few films are. Though it has a story and an arc like a conventional film (unlike McQueen's early, Warholesque experiments), its literal documenting of the main character's sexual addiction and all of his interactions make it a profound statement on life in general with surprisingly little moralizing. In short, it's a work of art rendered in the medium of film more than it's an artistic film.

Even if you're the sort who thinks movies should be light entertainments, the film is worth seeing for the mesmerizing performance by vampiric Fassbender as handsome, put-together, successful Brandon, whose compulsive sexual behavior is so time-consuming it has taken over any semblance of a life. If the sexually graphic (it's NC17) film weren't so difficult for the uptight to watch, Fassbender would be guaranteed an Oscar nomination; the silent acting he does with his eyes is unforgettable, and the painful crawl of his character's internal thoughts being exposed is perfectly calibrated, a counterpoint to the shocking and immediate revealing of his body. (Which is beautiful, by the way. As for the much-talked-about cock cameo, let's just say his penis brings more to Shame than Judi Dench brought to Shakespeare in Love, but if you go to this artful film strictly to pant after him you'll quickly feel like a caveman.)

When Brandon's hipster sister (Carey Mulligan) arrives unexpectedly to crash on his couch between singing gigs (her "New York, New York" is simultaneously lovely and excruciatingly protracted), his routine of porn and pick-ups is upended, cornering him and forcing him to think about his problem more than he'd like. The results are explosive, as is the queasy chemistry between the odd couple siblings, described by his sister with the disturbing hint, "We're not bad people. We just come from a bad place." Mulligan is absolutely perfect, alternately annoying as hell and warmly needy.

Jason, who saw it with me, felt the movie was a bit pretentious. I know what he meant, but for me the criticism is that it is occasionally melodramatic. A gay scene felt like something out of Cruising, meant to shock more so than the many other equally potentially shocking sex scenes in the film.

You make me wet

Still, this is my kind of movie—a film with a with an unslakable thirst for its characters, a keen eye for how people relate or fail to relate to one another and no stock answers. It's a riddle, not a diagnosis, and it will stay with me a lot longer than some of the films more likely to score this awards season.