Oscar Contenders #3: Come Together

Review: Shame + Melancholia

Brandon Sullivan (Michael Fassbender) glances at a woman across the subway car, prolonged glances. She adjusts herself, averts her eyes, stands to exit the train. He follows her through the car doors and up the stairs, expecting more, but she gets away before he can reach her. This is one of the most erotic scenes of Shame, director Steve McQueen's study of sexual addiction, but we can read it as a metaphor for the whole experience. After a breathless, enticing first hour, the movie (and Brandon) seem to get away from McQueen.

As confident as Fassbender's performance is, the central character is New York City. For an intimate film, McQueen stays on location often (especially several erotic trysts at the exhibitionist Standard Hotel). Counteracting Brandon's private routine, bare white walls and soulless office job, the streets of New York are both empowering and stifling: just look at that shot halfway through of Brandon running several blocks late at night, ultimately stalled at a red light, jogging in place. There's no real escape in this Manhattan. To this end, Carey Mulligan as his sister Sissy sings a melancholy "New York, New York" in a relentless close-up. Mulligan is surprisingly extroverted; but her childlike qualities are still her most interesting feature.

Writers McQueen and Abi Morgan don't move toward psychological understanding or redemption. But they don't offer anything to fill the void. The final sexual encounter we see is overwrought, even ridiculous; should we think a menage a trois is cathartic or extraordinary for a sex addict? And Brandon and Sissy's sibling relationship, which (effectively) shows some disconcerting boundary issues, leads to a predictable climax. Suddenly, the movie passes moral judgment on Brandon's addiction and his neglect of the people that matter.

Fassbender, thankfully, has proven himself so assured that a film like this would hardly be possible without a performance like this. He's charismatic and desirable, which helps; emphathetic even at his cruelest; unafraid of baring himself (emotionally, of course). Feels like he's become a major actor in just one year.

Kirsten Dunst has taken longer to grow into adult roles, but here she is in Melancholia, working with one of the most eccentric (even undisciplined) directors. The gamble paid off: Lars von Trier has found a maturity in Dunst, whose character Justine grapples with overwhelming depression on her wedding night. The wedding sequence plays like a comedy of errors, with Dunst as the fading figurehead, trying to keep it together. Her family guilts her for the money they spent on her; the groom (Alexander Skarsgard) is in over his head; her disapproving mother (the deliciously dry Charlotte Rampling) sours the wedding toast. She's even a slave to von Trier: a mannequin trapped in a vibrant series of oil paintings: conveying electric currents from her fingers; drowning with her bouquet in a frog pond; fleeing with tree roots clinging to her dress. Simone Grau's art direction is a wonder, especially in the apocalpytic bookends.

Yes, the world is ending. Everyone's nervous about the irregular planet Melancholia, whose path may collide with or just barely miss the Earth. This anxiety consumes Justine's sister, Claire, played by French musician Charlotte Gainsbourg, who watches the skies for the oncoming planet. With the director's fascination over depressive Justine, Claire isn't as developed. Their family background is hastily sketched; we only see her frantic reactions to Melancholia's approach.

But there's a smart balance between the sisters--the put-together Claire unravels when she's up against celestial forces beyond her control, while Justine awaits (even provokes?) its coming. Lars von Trier doesn't degrade his female protagonists like in some previous films. He seems in awe of the mighty universe he's created, and finds compassion even in its destruction.