Review: Film

Shame written by Abi Morgan and Steve McQueen, dir Steve McQueen, Michael Fassbender, Carey Mulligan

Brave. A few dead-end alleys in an otherwise compulsive movie: it’s shot beautifully, and erotically, around Manhattan, in subways, in anonymous grey offices, apartment buildings, sleazy bars and meat joints. The common currency is sex: Brandon, a successful middle executive, is an addict. No reasons are made clear for this. Though when Sissy, his drifter-sister, comes back into his life, there is sense of shared history, of which neither speaks. Sissy brings colour and a little bit of the exotic in the beginning, but her fragility is all too apparent when she hits on Brandon’s boss; and her heart-wrung singing of New York, New York shows her already half-submerged. There are two fine performances from Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan, in an endless, though compelling round, of seedy assignations and joyless sex, where the New York backdrop is grey and unforgiving. Whether British artist, Steve McQueen, is making some subtle call here, is difficult to tell, as his standpoint at best, is ambiguous…….Hard viewing, but the film is shot with a sincerity as we see Brandon spiral from porn sites, lack-lustre dinner dates, call-girls, orgies to a battle-scarred, mess of self-loathing….He still rides the subway, but whether he is tempted or cured as he catches the eye of an attractive girl in the final sequence, we never know……..