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Shame

What it's about:

Brandon (played by Michael Fassbender) is a handsome and successful New Yorker whose days are governed by his rampant sex addiction. His seemingly functional and solitary descent into self-destruction is interrupted when his wayward younger sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan) worms her way back into his life.

What we thought:

By now you’ve very likely come to know a little more about Shame than what the sparse but alluring trailer has to offer. Ever since the Venice Film Festival last year, all the talk around this movie has been about the looming presence of Michael Fassbender's penis.

It makes an appearance early on in the film, and while it’s certainly something that will shake some viewers, it’s not the most sensational part of writer-director Steve McQueen’s dark and probing character study. That so much has been made about it – both in criticism and in jest – is perhaps indicative of how rare male full frontal nudity is in modern cinema. Or perhaps Fassbender’s Fassmember is just that impressive.

Still, the nudity and the long and unflinching scenes of Brandon’s many anonymous encounters, don’t leave nearly as enduring an impression as the conflicted man that is Brandon himself. Physically strong and attractive he still cuts a miserable figure, with a weariness about his shoulders and a vacant look in eyes that is symptomatic of substance abusers and addicts of all shades.

His insatiable sex drive leaves him impotent in every other aspect of his life. He can’t connect with the one woman he might have actual feelings for and roams the streets of New York like an alluring predator, looking to score.

The story goes to a new level of darkness when Brandon’s sister makes an appearance and her mere presence threatens to send him over the edge. Their relationship is fraught with the kind of tension that can only exist between siblings – but so much of what pains them both remains a mystery, hinting at a past tragedy or trauma that has left them both broken.

Since Shame is so thinly written, it relies on its performances the way a movie like anything else on circuit right now does not. And it’s the actors who earn this film its fourth star.

Fassbender has been steadily revealing his powers with every role, slipping in and out of blockbusters (playing Magneto in X-Men: First Class, the upcoming Prometheus) and indie fare like Fish Tank and Jane Eyre with an enviable ease. It’s clear that McQueen brings out the best in him, after directing him to his best role yet as IRA member Bobby Sands in the equally challenging hunger strike real-life drama Hunger in 2008.

Carey Mulligan is perhaps the biggest surprise as she matches her co-star with a nakedly raw performance that is almost painful to watch. When Brandon bursts into tears as he watches his sister perform a chilling rendition of New York, New York at a jazz lounge it feels like a natural reaction, even though, like much else in Shame - and the experience of shame itself - it’s a telling moment that left to seep in without any further explanation.

Shame is art cinema at its most provocative – an absorbing and intense exercise in control that exhibits the best of McQueen’s talents and his superlative cast.

Not to put too fine a point on it, Shame is not for the fainthearted, with graphic scenes of sexual content and a depth of melancholy that viewers should prepare to carry around with them for a long time after.

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