Shame
£10 / £8 concessions / £7 ICA Members
Hunger (2008) marked a prodigious breakthrough into feature filmmaking for Turner prize winning artist Steve McQueen. His second film, Shame, further cements his reputation as an outstanding British director not afraid to tackle challenging topics.
Michael Fassbender plays Brandon, a man for whom sex is a compulsion that keeps him isolated from any form of intimacy. He has a successful career and an expensive apartment, living a solitary life both fuelled and undermined by his obsession. His sister, Sissy (Mulligan), is a mess of another kind. She arrives uninvited and stays. Unwelcome, she won't leave. The film is a haunting and compelling account of the effects of a dysfunctional family (the causes of which are never discussed) on the next generation. Fassbender, frighteningly good as a man incapable of relating to others, won the award for Best Actor at Venice 2011, while Mulligan again reveals her formidable acting talent.
Dir: Steve McQueen, UK, 2011, English, 18 cert, 101 mins
Stars: Michael Fassbender, Carey Mulligan, James Badge Dale