2011 (UK)
Director: Steve McQueen
Viewed: November 12, 2011
Format: Digital Theatrical Projection (Landmark Tivoli Theater)
With his sophomore feature film, Shame, director Steve McQueen once again ruthlessly observes as Michael Fassbender subjects himself to a hideous regimen of self-annihilation. However, whereas McQueen’s stunning 2008 debut, Hunger, depicted an IRA true believer forgoing food as an act of political protest, the director’s new film focuses on a man utterly dominated by sexual compulsions. Brandon (Fassbender) leads a quintessential lonely New York City bachelor life, one bounded by a successful New-New Economy career and aseptic one-bedroom apartment, but defined by the relentless pursuit of orgasm. “Libido” seems too feeble a word to describe Brandon’s drives, which are akin to a yawning, ravenous void that he fills with an endless succession of one-night-stands and call girls (not to mention habitual wanks in the office restroom). Into this frenzied pit of sexual need tumbles Brandon’s little sister, Cissy (Carey Mulligan), a struggling torch-singer who crashes on his couch when she finds herself back in New York and between lovers. Needless to say, Cissy’s presence sets Brandon on edge, not only because of their sharp personality clashes, but because Baby Sis throws a monkey-wrench into his sexual routine.
Regardless of whether Brandon’s disengaged, hypersexual behavior truly constitutes “sexual addiction,” (or whether such an affliction even exists), the man is plainly engaged in a fearsome cycle that is spiraling slowly and inevitably downward, a cycle he seems to find personally repugnant and yet is unable to halt. There’s no denying that Shame is a psychologically ugly film, repugnant in a way that even Hunger never managed. The latter film at least grapples with the alleged moral purity of self-destruction for ideological reasons, even if it never fully embraces such a view. By comparison, Brandon’s carnal pursuits contain not a hint of joyful hedonism, just a slack inertia and a whopping dose of self-hatred. In the main, the film relies on Fassbender’s exceedingly raw performance to convey the foulness of Brandon’s rutting, rather than on seedy style or production design. To wit: There is a extended threesome scene late in the film that is lovingly shot in golden hues, scored with rapturous strings, and edited to take the viewer sleekly from one position and act to the next. And yet Fassbender’s face contains all the evidence necessary to illustrate that this erotic marathon is an act of supreme unhappiness and loathing.
It’s this kind of bold upending of expectations—and the refusal to indulge in cinematic laziness—that makes McQueen’s film-making approach so invigorating, no matter how unpleasant the subject matter. The director’s use of anamorphic widescreen is, if anything more striking here than in Hunger, and his camera placement and use of long takes are just as thrilling. Returning cinematographer Sean Bobbitt presents a cool, gorgeous urban landscape that glints with a distinctly Gotham atmosphere. Meanwhile, the film’s look also subtly complements its deep aura of twenty-first century despair, with all the directionless anxiety that implies. Buried deep in the script is a suggestion that family abuse is at the root of Brandon and Cissy’s problems, but Shame isn’t particularly interested in excavating the siblings’ deeply scarified psyches in search of personal demons to exorcise. This is gruesome portraiture, pure and simple, executed largely without the pleasure of a redemptive narrative arc. The film simply wants us to look unflinchingly at Brandon and consider how such an outwardly functional but inwardly broken person could be created and sustained.
C+ - The King’s Speech is a more or less pleasing slice of entertainment, one that snugly fulfills the familiar parameters established by countless portrayals of personalized Struggle Against Adversity. The fact that the protagonist in this instance is the reluctant monarch of a corroding empire–and that his mentor-rival is played by a pithy and unflappable Geoffrey Rush–only amplifies the film’s surface allure. As cinema, however, Tom Hooper’s film is a distressingly thin and vacant work, undergirded by an implicit and almost snotty presumption that if the beats are recognizable and the ornaments polished, then artistic vitality is a given. Hooper’s previous work, The Damned United, likewise suffered from dramatic triteness, but was nonetheless a remarkably nimble and inventive film, persistently surprising with its subversion of sports film conventions and its acerbic thematic grumblings. The King’s Speech, by contrast, rests almost entirely on musty appeals to emotion, whether garbed in its distinctly British ethos of duty and perseverance or in the admittedly superb design of its period trappings. Better writers than I have 
B- - The film adaptations of J.K. Rowling’s staggeringly popular fantasy novels have perfected a remarkable, distinctive formula. Once the banal hand of Chris Columbus was pried from the franchise following Chamber of Secrets, every chapter in the saga has exhibited the same characteristics: an ever-burgeoning cast of wizards, monsters, and other sundry characters seemingly destined to encompass every British thespian of note; maddeningly convoluted plots, conveyed so sketchily that only devoted fans of the books can hope to comprehend what the hell is going on; stunning, inspired production design overseen by the invaluable Stuart Craig; and exceedingly game, unfailingly charming performances from series principals Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson. The seventh film in the series, the first of a two-part finale, sticks closely to this template, a thoroughly unadventurous and (at this late date) sensible approach. Having shepherded the saga through its previous two chapters, director David Yates has learned that such a formula reliably bestows a patina of epic artistry on the franchise, inoculates it against conventional criticism, and just happens to reap billions of dollars. The films cannot be dismissed as trifling—they represent, for better or worse, the most ambitious work of long-form fantasy cinema in history—but as the series reaches its end, their significance as entertainment to viewers not already hooked on Harry’s adventures is doubtful. Which leads to the most essential question regarding Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1: How good is it, when approached strictly as the penultimate entry in the broader saga? The answer: Exactly as good as it needs to be to bring loyal Potterheads (including yours truly) back for one more outing.
