- Classification: R18+
- Written and directed by Steve McQueen
- Starring Michael Fassbender, Carey Mulligan, James Badge Dale & Nicole Behaire
- Runtime 101 minutes
ADDICTIONS come in many various forms, and all are destructive. In Shame, award winning English writer-director Steve McQueen takes us into the world of sex addiction. Like all addictions it’s more than shameful, it’s debilitating and leaves its victims deprived of their humanity and purpose in live. Something which Steve McQueen reveals in all its depravity and desperation, something only filmmakers of courage like McQueen are game to tackle.
With McQueen’s brilliant and detailed direction, his clever and smart dialogue. Add in a rich tapestry of music and production design, stunning cinematography and the really outstanding performances of Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan, together with the fine performances others. This is a film which will win awards and praise for the courage of its making, but not audiences who can’t see past the surface of its depth, and the challenge the subject presents.
Brandon Sullivan (Michael Fassbender) is a New Yorker living in an up-market apartment near Manhattan’s 28th Street. He shuns intimacy with women but feeds his need for sex, in the form porn, masturbation, prostitutes and picking up women who want quick and loveless sex. When his unstable younger sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan) moves into his apartment, she wants him to believe she’s dying of cancer, but he’s not interested, takes no notice of her, leading to her frustration with him and his to her. Her coming into Brandon’s inward-looking life brings memories of their shared painful past, something he thinks he’s put behind him, and sees Brandon’s insular world spiral out of control.
Brandon has a good job and a good relationship with his boss, who cannot believe the state of Brandon’s computer hard drive. “Who put all that filth on it, it must have been that intern you had working with you?” his boss David (James Badge Dale) suggests. “Probably,” Brandon responds. But he knows who it was, and when they hit the town together that evening, he has David pick up his next sexual partner for a quick shag. When Brendan reluctantly goes with David to hear Sissy sing at a classy bar, she finishes up sleeping with David. Brandon is furious, demanding her morals be purer than his.
When Brandon invites an office colleague Marianne (Nicole Behaire) out for dinner at a fine dining restaurant, he’s not even paying attention to choosing what to eat and drink, all he’s thinking about is getting into her nickers. But just having gone through a divorced, she senses his need and doesn’t allow him to escort her home. Later, when he takes her to a hotel in the afternoon and cannot complete his mission, he lets her leave as he falls into a heap of shame and frustration.
Back at his apartment his sister opens his bathroom door at an inappropriate moment, and he wants her out of his life. So how does he react, not allowed into a nightclub he seeks his needs elsewhere, gets beaten up for his stupid behaviour and then ventures into a foreign world for his satisfaction. But Sissy really needs him now, something which finally brings him to his senses with an unbearable dose of shame and pain.
Shame is in cinemas February 9
The Movie Hound’s Picks
- Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace (3-D) [PG ] (Four Stars – in cinemas February 9)
This remake of the 1999 movie, the fourth in the series, this time in 3-D , which only works for the fight scenes. Has been created for those who where not around at the time, or whatever. With its lifeless early scenes, it soon comes to life and you get the full taste of George Lucas’ filmmaking and entertainment magic.
- Man on a Ledge [M] (Three Stars – in cinemas ;February 9)
When ex-cop Nick Cassidy (Sam Worthington), now a wanted prison escapee, stands on a high ledge of New York hotel, Lydia Mercer (Elizabeth Banks), a police negotiator is brought in to talk him down. Falsely convicted of stealing a huge diamond from David Englander (Ed Harris) a crooked property developer, Cassidy is trying to bring his case to the attention of the public. At the same time two friends of his have invaded a near by building to find evidence, which could help Cassidy’s case. While billed as a thriller, a better script would have helped. Predictable, full of clichés, it becomes convoluted and outlandish, and does deserve its ending.
Lotterywest (PIAF) Film Festival
Tabloid [M]
- Directed by Errol Morris
- Starring Joyce McKinney, Peter Tory, Kent Gavin, Troy Williams & Jackson Shaw
- Runtime 87 minutes
- Four Stars
IS Joyce McKinney, the former Miss Wyoming beauty queen with an IQ of 168, barking mad or just an overzealous romantic? That depends on who you believe, Fleet Street’s The Daily Mirror, The Daily Express, Joyce McKinney herself, or even Errol Morris’ documentary film Tabloid? In which he tells the story of the sensation Joyce McKinney caused in the British tabloid press, after the disappearance of Kirk Anderson, a US Mormon missionary, from Ewell in Surrey, England in September 1977.
As a teenager Joyce McKinney fell in love with Kirk Anderson, a Mormon whom the Mormon church hurriedly sent to Britain as a missionary. Determined to marry Kirk Anderson, Joyce McKinney followed him to England with the intention of marrying Kirk Anderson, whatever it took. Allegedly, she kidnapped him at gunpoint and took him to remote cottage in Devon. Where, having filled the fridge full of Kirk’s favourite food and other things, she shackled him to a bed, stripped him naked and had sex with him for three whole days and nights.
Having a one time sexy young beauty queen waiting on you hand and foot, and satisfying your every whim and fancy, sounds like every man’s fantasy, but Kirk was frightened his church would excommunicate him for having sex and marrying a non-Mormon. When Kirk managed to escape from the cottage, he told the Police how he had been kidnapped at gunpoint and taken to this remote cottage in Devon, where Joyce had forced him to have sex with her for three days. The story of their three days of sex, food and fun, was written up in the tabloids as “The Case of the Manacled Mormon.”
Joyce McKinney was arrested and soon found herself telling a completely different story in court, She said Kirk came with her willingly, getting bail she fled England with her alleged co-conspirator Keith May. Back in the US they were arrested and charged with making false statements to obtain passports. The British authorities however, didn’t take steps to have Joyce extradited from the US, but in her absence the court sentenced her to a year in prison.
As this seemingly ridiculous humorous and weird story unfolds we hear what is either the truth or a pack of lies, from, Peter Tory of the Daily Express, Kent Gavin of the Daily Mirror, and Joyce McKinney herself. Spin is spin and while we can expect it from Britain’s tabloid media, Joyce McKinney is no innocent.
The Daily Express printed Joyce’s side of the story, while their rival The Daily Mirror send Gavin to the US to dig up as much dirt about her as possible, and he found quite a lot, some true, some highly suspect. Especially some photographs of her which she claimed were Photoshoped to paint her worse than a prostitute.
While there’s little doubt that Joyce McKinney is a complete nutter whose animated voice and emphatic gestures, show her as unsettled, she’s sometimes highly amusing and always entertaining, the truth is dependent on who is speaking. This documentary is highly entertaining, and at times very funny, but always quite disturbing. Spin is spin and you would expect it from the British tabloid newspapers, but Joyce McKinney is no innocent.
Joyce McKinney is suing director Errol Morris and his producer Mark Lipson, whom she says tricked her into appearing in this film. She again featured in the tabloids in 2008, when it was reported that she paid a South Korean laboratory run by a Dr Hong, to clone her favourite dog after its death.
Tabloid screens exclusively at the Somerville, February 20-25.
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