Shame

Released: 2011
Drama
Director: Steve McQueen
Starring: Michael Fassbender, Carey Mulligan
Running Time: 101 minutes
Rated: NC-17

The breakdown: A man struggles with facing his sex addiction when his sister unexpectedly needs a place to live for awhile.

I had never heard of this movie and I like Michael Fassbender so I was interested.

Fassbender plays a man who's pretty selfish.  He has no real relationship with a woman and lives alone in New York City.  He works a normal white collar job and no one suspects he's a sex addict.  He's constantly looking at porn magazines, on the internet, or pornographic movies.  He also does this at work and seems to take several breaks a day to go to the bathroom to masturbate.  He hires prostitutes to have sex with at his apartment, or sometimes finds women at bars and has sex with them wherever, the street, or a hotel.

So once his sister drops in on him, saying she's broken up with her boyfriend and needs a place to live for a bit, he's not so happy.  She's very needy and not financial responsible as she has a job as a singer and only gets work sporadically.  She's younger then him and immature.  You get the feeling she's not capable of taking care of herself in any way.

Eventually Fassbender's obsession comes to light to his sister as she walks in on him masturbating, sees his live camera chat with a sex website, and other things, so he's a bit embarrassed, but does not ask for help.

Things escalate when he makes a move on one of his co-workers, and after they show his sister is a bit more mentally unstable then originally thought.

The title comes from the last scenes of the movie where Fassbender and his sister really go over the edge separately one night in New York.  I won't ruin it for you if you want to see this one.

I give it 4 out of 5 for being a strong character study of Fassbender's character.  He's an excellent actor and one of my personal favorites, and his talent is not wasted in this movie.  I did have a problem with the director staying too long in the moment with some of the camera work and scenes....It just didn't make sense sometimes and makes the movie's pace slow down too much.  The most unappealing part of the movie was Carey Mullligan singing "New York, New York" originally recorded by Frank Sinatra about 4 counts slower.  TERRIBLE!  And she sings the entire song, so it's too boring and one of those long moments that could've easily been condensed.

As I said, it is NC-17 so expect a LOT of sex scenes, a LOT of nudity (including several full frontal shots of Michael Fassbender), and a lot of cursing.  If you can handle this kind of movie, I highly recommend it.