IHC Movie Reviews: Shame (2011)

I watched SHAME yesterday and I cannot stop thinking about it. Michael Fassbender lives in NYC. He has a good job, an swank apartment and a massive sexual addiction that’s bordering on crippling. This dude is all about sex. He’s nonstop surfing porn and jacking off, banging whores like it’s going out of style and in the peaceful moments between all the stroking and pumping he’s eyeballing every chick that walks by.

Of course it helps that he’s handsome as fuck and has a cush job. If he was some fucked up Ottis Toole-looking motherfucker it’d be a totally different story, but let’s leave that to somebody else to direct. Because what Director/Co-Writer Steve McQueen has so masterfully captured here is a riveting glimpse of a man severely haunted by past demons. We’re not told what they are, but it clearly has something to do with his childhood, so when his younger sister unexpectedly shows up it drives him to the edge…and maybe over? Well, you just have to see for yourself.

I cannot rave about SHAME enough. I enjoyed every single second of it…the acting, the direction, the cinematography, hell the fucking lighting was awesome and the original music! It was was perfect. No music in the world could have captured that moment on the subway better than it did. I literally watched that scene like six times times. I was in movie heaven. So how is it that a film that can transport a grouchy movie nerd like me to movie heaven be completely overlooked by the Academy Awards last year? I have no clue. There had to be some kind of weird disqualification or something. Because, in my opinion, SHAME should have had a number of nominations. Including a Best Actor award for Michael Fassbender. He was already robbed for FISH TANK, so they owe him.

In conclusion if THE WAR ZONE and MYSTERIOUS SKIN were brother and sister and they were forced by their father, AMERICAN PSYCHO, to have sex and they had a baby, the baby would be SHAME. Watch it and you’ll see what I’m getting at.

4/5

Review by Darsh

Originally posted here, reposted with permission