It appears that Oscar knows no SHAME. It has shunned this intriguingly beautiful yet confronting film. When the star from Hunger teams with the lead from An Education, you get SHAME. Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan play brother and sister in Steve McQueen’s provocative follow up to his feature film debut, HUNGER.
SHAME has been rated R for high impact sex scenes. The siblings don’t have sex with each other in the film, but they may have had an incestuous encounter previously. She says to him at one stage, “We are not bad people. We just come from a bad place.”
Their sexual lives are quite different. He, Brandon, is a satyr, besotted with anonymous sex and apparently insatiable. Real or virtual, mutual or masturbation, Brandon is addicted to his bar, fretting if he frots not, a flesh fetishist who is not fazed if the fornication is free or for a fee.
His sister, Sissy, is almost the reverse, falling deeply, madly in love with anyone she has sex with, becoming boorishly needy upon consummation, displaying the monotony of a monogamous goose.
The salaciousness of the subject of sex addiction may pull punters and conversely repel others, but this film has an undeniable beauty, depth and soul.
From the opening image of Brandon, shipwrecked in his bed sheets, staring into the void, to the fabulous tracking shot down 7th Avenue to the Garden, to the audacity of almost single shot scenes, McQueen shows a mastery of cinema technique, allowing his actors and the script to breathe.
McQueen co-wrote the screenplay with Abi Morgan, author of The IRON LADY and the recent hit television series, THE HOUR. Behind the scenes, he’s reteamed with Sean Bobbitt and Joe Walker his cinematographer and editor from Hunger.
SHAME features beautifully detailed, nuanced and natural performances throughout, but special mention must go to James Badge Dale as Brandon’s boss who has a fling with Sissy, and Nicole Beharie as Marianne, a colleague of Brandon who stirs emotional passion in him that perversely incapacitates his ability to perform.
SHAME has not been nominated for an Academy Award – as a film it is superior to both the flacid TREE OF LIFE and facile WAR HORSE, and Steve McQueen trumps both Steve Spielberg and Terence Malick as a helmer, hands down.
(c) Richard Cotter
12th February, 2012
Tags- Sydney Cinema Reviews- SHAME, Steve McQueen, Michael Fassbender, Carey Mulligan, Reviewer Richard Cotter, Sydney Arts Guide