This movie is a very sad movie. This is sadness and there is close to no joy whatsoever, but why should there? This is a movie about an addiction, a parasite to your mind, the thing that you crave so hard without realizing it, it destroys your social life and those connected you & all you have left is you and your desires alone.
Director Steve McQueen delivers us a very artistic movie focusing on a man named Brandon (played by Michael Fassbender) who is an extremely sex addicted person, we’re talking *********ing during work breaks, during shower, stalking women, chasing women, paying ****es, having porn magazines, having porn movies and having a wave of connection of different webcam playmates to play alongside. This man’s whole life circles around his sex adventures, you can see that in his own apartment the way everything is decorated in pitch plain white, there are no real colors, paintings or any decorations. His apartment is just his place to rest or have sex. His sex addiction starts to take his toll as he shares his apartment with his sister Sissy (played by Carey Mulligan) who is another damaged soul. She has cut herself multiple times during her youth and she has those forceful boyfriends who can’t trust them and wish to control them and just claim to love them. I felt connection to both of these characters and felt incredible sorry for both, especially Sissy because no one deserves such a horrible relationship.
Steve McQueen beautifully finds a way to heighten the drama and emotion through music. In scenes for example illustrate the pain the characters are going thru, all the background noise and dialogue falls silent, allowing the music to peak for both the actor and the event occurring during the screen. This is very powerful usage of music and I felt the original soundtrack by Harry Escott was both powerful and moving.
Michael Fassbender delivers the role of his career, he shows how deeply damaged the character is right to his soul, how much passion and lust he has for his sex, but also showing how completely controlling that desire is to him. His performance will be the talk of the movie and I look forward to seeing all the nominations and awards he will gather from his utterly honest performance.
The movie ends with a nice full circle closure, but again this isn’t your usual movie where everything is solved and everything is just happy happy joy joy. This is a movie about addictions, this isn’t going to be a very bright or uplifting movie, but I hope best for these characters as the credit roll and that they would find a way to deal with their problems. That’s how I feel everyone will feel once the movie ends.
In a word: Mesmerizing. Go and see it.