SHAME

Viewers are confronted with a fearless and frank depiction of sex addiction in Shame, the breathtaking sophomore film of British director Steve McQueen (Hunger). Michael Fassbender plays Brandon, a New York yuppie whose insatiable sexual appetite is fuelled by an endless regime of one-night stands and moral depravity. When his wayward sister (Carey Mulligan) arrives for an unannounced visit, Brandon becomes increasingly volatile, spurning her efforts to reconnect and hurtling further into the city’s dark underbelly. In his best performance to date, Fassbender (also Hunger) chips away at Brandon’s veneer of cool-charm and casual cynicism to expose raw despair, and in doing so conjures sympathy for an otherwise deplorable person. Mulligan (An Education), who’s equally impressive, strikes a careful balance between impertinence and vulnerability, whilst demonstrating her talent as a singer with a tender rendition of the theme from New York, New York. Shame is steeped in explicit sexual imagery, but McQueen deliberately avoids titillation. Instead, he deglamorises sex to reveal sobering, often unsettling truths about human dysfunction. Ultimately, Shame is a challenging yet immensely rewarding exploration of self-destruction and possible salvation. (JH) ****1/2