2011 Directed by Steve McQueen
Brandon is a New Yorker who shuns intimacy with women but feeds his desires with a compulsive addiction to sex. When his wayward younger sister moves into his apartment stirring memories of their shared painful past, Brandon's insular life spirals out of control.
Michael Fassbender Carey Mulligan James Badge Dale Nicole Beharie Alex Manette Hannah Ware Anna Rose Hopkins Elizabeth Masucci Rachel Farrar Loren Omer Lucy Walters Amy Hargreaves Marta Milans Mari-Ange Ramirez Lauren Tyrrell Jake Siciliano Robert Montano Charisse Bellante Carl Low Calamity Chang Deedee Luxe Wenne Alton Davis
95/100
A wailing and desperate cry of anguish and pain constructed within the leering jungle of NYC, Shame isn't so much a study of sexual addiction as it is a tortuous insight into crumbling relationships of the modern world. In Steve McQueen's film (which is possibly his masterpiece), feelings aren't told or even visualized as much as they're already within the details of the frame. Genuine conversation and aching truth make up every speck of grain from the gorgeous 35mm photography, and the result is a work of unpleasant frankness and harrowing sincerity.
Michael Fassbender is the obvious highlight here, and he's just as incredible, engaging, and unrelentingly sad as you'd expect from him in a role such as this,…
i've never come out of a movie genuinely surprised a character did not fuck their sibling
Film#30 of 'It's June Jim, but not as we know it '
This isn't a film about sex addiction. It's a film about a man torn in half by himself. The addiction is a mere vehicle for an exploration of control, humanity and self destruction.
Fassbender is amazing and easily gives one of the best performances I have seen in a couple of years. He is reprehensible, charming and unbelievably sad. His character, a man desperately running away from himself yet totally dependent on himself, is intriguing. What McQueen is able to do like no other director is to allow us to enter the mind of his characters. He is an observer and that is how he shoots his films,…
Review In A Nutshell:
Arguably, Shame finds director Steve McQueen at its peak, a sophomore opus that blends his arthouse sensibilities with commercial accessibility, a striking balance that never favours the latter over the former, neither condescending nor insulting, bolstered by a performance by Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan that never ceases to be striking, constantly soulful in their existence and brimming with stimulation, a bond between siblings that may leave others discomforted, but for others provoked, essential to their characterisation and compelling in their subtleties. Demanding but deeply rewarding, Shame is an unforgettable piece, deliberate in its pacing and casual in its arc, it demonstrates an artistic flourish from McQueen that would seem likely to drift away as he currently finds himself in renowned fame, let us hope he remains true to his roots.
Sex addiction is often seen as a rather silly and trivial addiction, one that celebrities wheel out when their infidelities become public knowledge. Yet in Steve McQueen's second feature it is portrayed as potentially serious, debilitating and life destroying as drug or alcohol addiction. The film is as utterly empty as Brandon's own existence and whilst that may sound like a flaw it really isn't. McQueen puts you in his world and gets under the skin of Brandon's hollow life and ambiguous family backstory. It is odd coming out of a film where you feel so little, normally they aim to heighten emotions not numb them, but it is crucial in understanding the character and the world he inhabits for…
That cleaning montage of everything that fuels his addiction and maintains his rigid & isolated lifestyle was sublime, it felt like a moment of shared catharsis.
Gorgeously slick and purposefully sterile, paints an uncomfortably bleak picture of addiction but I didnt feel it had any bigger point to make beyond showing a man being torn apart by himself. Fassbender is so great in the quieter scenes, one of my favourite sequences being the painfully awkward date he goes on, as well as the hotel scene a little later as he begins to break down once he feels even the smallest emotional connection to Marianne, but towards the end I dont think he sold the bigger stuff, I just dont think thats his strength.
Shot very self-indulgently, this film felt to me completely devoid of any sort of statement about the theme it was supposed to explore. Or wasn’t?
I didn’t get it
It still consistently baffles me as to how there was no Academy Award recognition for McQueen’s direction, Fassbender’s performance and Escott’s score.
wow wtf michael fassbender is once again incredible but i was so convinced this movie was going in a very different direction like multiple times alksdjla
Shame is a horrific, existential sucker punch that left me reeling in despair on a Friday night. In other words, I absolutely loved it.
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