Shame (2011)
Shame (2011)
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Synopsis

"The cruel paradox of addiction is that it transforms a source of pleasure into an inescapable, insatiable need. An abundance — an overdose — of movies and books explores the logic of this condition, mostly with respect to drugs or alcohol. “Shame,” the relentless new feature from the British artist turned filmmaker Steve McQueen, has a lot in common with films that plumb the toxic romance of the bottle or the needle. The crucial difference is that its protagonist, a handsome, youngish Manhattanite named Brandon (Michael Fassbender), is hooked on sex. This poses a special challenge for Mr. McQueen, since there are rules, conventions and cognitive habits that limit how explicit — and how explicitly unpleasant — movie sex can be. Watching someone else take a drink or snort a line will not cause intoxication in the viewer, but watching other people get naked and squirm around together is a sure-enough turn-on to be the basis of a lucrative industry. How can visual pleasure communicate existential misery? It is a real and interesting challenge, and if “Shame” falls short of meeting it, the seriousness of its effort is hard to deny. " (A. O. Scott, New York Times)

Steve McQueen---USA/Great Britain---2011---101 mins.

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  • Currently 1/5 Stars.
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   | bmac#1

I usually don't complain about slow films that pay a lot of attention to detail and create an illusion of real time. But that detail and sense of real time ought to be interesting. So much of this movie simply trudges onward with almost nothing to reveal - about the characters or the wider world. Brandon's dates (for dinner or for sex) with Marianne are just flat, dumb and boring. The only interesting and potentially worthwhile scenes were between Brandon and his sister. Although I have nothing really against Fassbender's performance, it's Carey Mulligan's performance as Sissy that almost inspired me to give the film a rating of 2. In the end, that wasn't enough to save what is a disappointingly simple-minded and empty movie.

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