Shame by Steve McQueen

Sex addiction is the subject at hand here and the shame of it doesn’t bear down so much on society as it does on Michael Fassbender’s Brandon Sullivan. An indistinct city slicker, Brandon’s work computer is full of porn as is his laptop, every shelf in his house and probably every obnoxiously square cushion in his blank, leather clad apartment. What director Steve McQueen has created in this character’s cramped but desolate life recklessly treads a line between brilliant and banal. For some, his style here will crystallise Shame as a moment of cinematic revelation for its blatancy and others will see it as a paint-by-numbers for the endless amount of filmmakers who seek to capture the times.

McQueen introduces us to Brandon when his sister comes to stay and her presence seems to push him to his limit. Sissy, played with frighteningly waifish fragility by Carey Mulligan is almost incomprehensibly vulnerable and regularly frustrating, but fittingly so. The existence of such a free and capable adult who is pathetically unwilling to get her ducks in her a row is – like so much of Shame – beyond disconcerting and uncomfortably real. Love her or hate her, Mulligan is completely on form here, it’s a shame she doesn’t get more screen time. Sissy’s presence hints at the disturbed past she shares with Brandon and her morally and sexually wayward ways (implied incest, naturally) provoke her brother to compare his own unconquerable desire for self satisfaction to her all-encompassing neediness.

But as much as McQueen and his co-writer Abi Morgan try to steer clear of judging Brandon, they inevitably make judgements (as good writers and directors do) on their subject, the notion of sexual attraction in a contemporary, cosmopolitan setting. Their film shows Brandon seeking out every physical and virtual opportunity for sex but it also demonstrates how sex seems to follow Brandon. Unfortunately, McQueen tackles this moral struggle with addiction with a heavy hand that patronises and bores the audience. When Brandon is persistently eyed-up on the subway by a married woman, McQueen demonstrates how attraction stops being compliment and instead becomes something selfish. But he insists on repetitive, unnecessary close-ups of her wedding ring as she leers at him, miles away from the sophistication of Hunger. Similarly, when Sissy performs an innocent jazz rendition of New York, New York she predictably evokes tears from her brother’s cold, dead eyes which I’m assuming is meant to be heart-warming on some level. It’s not.

Sadly, the boredom isn’t momentary. As Fassender goes about New York shagging anyone he deems worthy, Harry Escott’s music turns sex into an epic event. Lots and lots of epic events. At first it’s utterly brilliant and completely mesmerising but it soon loses its motif status and becomes dull. However, the film does redeem itself with moments of perfection when Brandon is in his most desperate state and becomes scary, heady and gripping all at once.

The characters are compelling, the cinematography a crude mix of overwhelming and condescending, while the acting is pretty faultless. It’s shame that McQueen leaves his audience so bored for so long, but take this as art above entertainment and Shame becomes something quite fascinating.

Shame opens in cinemas in the UK on January 13th.

This Must Be The Place

Out this week (as of 27th November in fact)

Few actors could play an ageing former rock-star hunting down a Nazi in Arizona, but Sean Penn does it with the fading lady voice of Quietin Crisp, the hair and make-up of Robert Smith and the blunt honesty of Will Oldham.

Fittingly, Oldham’s song makes an appearance in the show and along with Talking Head’s David Byrne, he’s created much of the film’s original soundtrack, giving it the dose of nostalgia needed to send Penn, as the rocker Cheyenne, back to America after the death of his Jewish father. Sorrentino gets to showcase his love for the long pan – mirroring Cheyenne’s prepetual boredom – and crane shots that take a slow drop over a balcony, skate through fields of corn, over walls and into cemeteries. He also loves the long reveal and characters in isloation, but ultimately, he loves David Byrne.

Cheyenne is soon reunited with Byrne, playing himself, at a concert where he performs This Must Be The Place and listens to Penn deliver a loud assessment of himself before he goes off to hunt down his father’s former persecutor. Thankfully, the story isn’t clogged with self-discovery and doesn’t smack us around the head with soul searching of it all. It succeeds in part thanks to Sorrentino’s script, written with Umberto Contarello, which allows Cheyenne to relish every opportunity for faux-philosophy and some straight talking to break up his endless days.

But the script also provides a few lacklustre characters whose storylines we never really get the chance to invest in. There’s intrigue, sure – who’s Tony? And why has he run away? – but also, why should we care?

There is however, a good balance between these depressed goth-like people and the loud, overly confident characters that cheer things right up. Francesca McDormand is believable as Cheyenne’s kooky but frank, fire-fighting wife, Simon Delany plays his delightfully delusional sex-obsessed friend Jeffrey, and Shea Whigham appears as a slick American who’s a little overly precious about his pick-up truck. And this is all before a priceless cameo from Harry Dean Stanton as the guy who invented suitcases with wheels.

The problem is that the story doesn’t rest with these gems; it ploughs on with the moody goths and because we don’t care enough about them, the concluding scene ends on a flat note that we could kind of see coming.
More LFF reviews can be found on the Spoonfed London Film Festival homepage.