i loved shame. its like the self loathing existential hero of taxi driver etc brought back for the sterile '10s. the prob i had with the film is it has a lot of beautiful, memorable scenes (i loved the barroom scene where he starts coming out with almost porno chat up lines), and as a kind of study of loneliness and isolation and emptiness and solipsism etc in the 10s, it does work quite well, fassbender is quite amazing, but theres not enough meat to it (and good as the scenes with carey mulligan are, the context isnt there). the sex stuff isnt hard enough, or grubby enough, it seems to not want to get too much into that, and sex addiction is quite a broad thing, i needed more specifics. it was left too vague, which is good as it never exploitative, but it could have been any addiction, it was really just about one tortured guy alone in new york (reminded me of american psycho and rodger dodger). my other issue with it is that it took itself too seriously at times. there were scenes that were RIGHT on that cusp of being hilarious/silly. im all for beauty but it seemed to be straining a little too hard for meaningfulness and gravity. the shot of him near the end breaking down and crying was just unnecessary and didnt have the impact mcqueen obv wanted it to have, ditto the 3some with him looking almost amusingly pained. it was overegging the tragedy. my other problem with it besides the boss whose boardroom speech about internet marketing and youtube was unbelievably unconvincing is that it doesnt really say enough about sex addiction as it might exist today, or how its affected by modern technology. sure you see him watching porn a lot and getting a webcam girl, but this could have been a film about the subject a decade or two ago. i mention that as in every interview the writer and mcqueen seem to be going on about how its about sex in the modern era when actually it doesnt really do enough to explain how or why it is like that (even if it does show the behaviour of someone with obvious intimacy issues, which is what most theorists think is the result of living in the web porn era).
carey mulligan surprised me as a singer. i actually liked her singing.
im glad i didnt read so much about it before i went - ive caught up on a lot of the reviews and interviews since and fuck me if there arent a ton of them - as that would have spoiled it. i cant understand film reviewers who just describe, describe, describe. if i had read all the reviews before, it probably would have ruined it for me as the film is quite minimal really. not sure about a few critics who have said its sexist. i dont really see that at all.
