Let's Go Brandon!

Watched a curious film last night ("Shame") which got a 7.2 on the IMDb Richter scale. If I don't know exactly what a film is about, I'll take a perfunctory look at IMDb to check its score to see if it's worth a look. They are pretty reliable and serious movie fans, so they don't give away much in the synopsis. I appreciate that. 

"Shame" looked to be a promising sex romp as the blurb about it read:

"A nymphomaniac's carefully cultivated private life falls apart after his sister arrives for an indefinite stay." 

Aside from one's buddies, who is going to cockblock you more than a sister? My little sister (the one that was like a little brother to me) warned all her girlfriends that she would kill them if they dared sleep with me. I'm not going to say that hilarity ensued as a result of that, but there was no carnage either. Most of them weren't a part of my dating pool anyways. Nor was I a nymphomaniac either. I was just a good-looking guy who did pretty well BITD when I was as young and pretty as I used to like to think I was. Many girls thought so too. Good times.

But this guy- Brandon- had problems. Played by Michael Fassbender, he was a fella that caught the eyes of many good-looking NYC women. He was successful at whatever his fancy job was even though he was often late for work because of his sexual desires. When he wasn't picking up women pretty much solely by eye contact, he was masturbating (a lot!) and hooking up with prostitutes in real life and with cam girls on the internet. He watched so much porn that his work computer became infected with a virus and IT had to commandeer it and fix it. I hope they wore gloves. He had a swinging dick, but his hook ups weren't based on that reputation. He wasn't a rapist either. There was a degree of structure to his sex life, and it simply didn't include monogamy. 

Then, his sister shows up. She's a weird one too. Theirs is a strained relationship and, by his ignoring of her frequent phone calls, it's pretty clear that if he never saw her again, he was okay with that. Whatever happened to them as siblings is never fully explored, and we should probably be grateful for that because you can draw your own conclusions. They are both hedonistic, but he more so than she. Maybe? I don't know. Blame the patriarchy if you must, but the story is about him. She tries and fails at relationships, and he just showers and moves on to the next tryst.

Her sleeping on his couch in his apartment is a dilemma, but it's supposed to be temporary. He can't handle it but seems to have no choice. She is family after all. It gets complicated when she hooks up with his married boss and they do it in his bedroom. He goes out for a long run while that happens. His boss is a horndog trying to score whenever he can but loses out to his underling's more obvious skill and attraction. He has to keep his obsession separate from work life so as not to further endanger his job. Thus, he puts up with his boss banging his sister. 

Later he dates a lovely young black woman from work. Their dinner is as awkward as any first date might be. The waiter was really awkward too, but I have no idea why. First day on the job maybe? I thought the story was going to make a good turn there as she was quite desirable and far more grounded than Brandon. Would this be the woman to save him? Her being black was probably to highlight a big change ahead for him, but not in a cliche racial way. She was different from any other woman because he was taking the time to get to know her. They didn't hook up that night, and I believe it was after that date that he went home and threw out all his porn and sex toys. Like a couple or three trash bags full!

I wished it had gone in that direction, and I guess though that I see why it didn't. They did soon hook up and, perhaps for the first time in his life, he failed sexually. To me, this meant that he was finding true love (the potential of, at least) and knew he should change his ways. This is where the fear and the titular shame came in as the porn went out to the curb. Brandon was not a likeable character, but I was rooting for him at this point. Redemption and true love were not to be though. No happy ending. That's a shame.