Shame - as good as I'd hoped

Went down to one of the local cinemas I visit less frequently last week to see 'Shame'. The Camberley Vue is smaller than many, though if my memory's right the manager there always seems to be more willing to show smaller films so it's often a good place to head. 'Shame' is a film I've been excited about for a long time now; starring Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan as troubled siblings, it tells a story of adiction leading to self-destruction.

Fassbender plays Brandon, a man who is addicted to sex. As the film opens we see him paying for sex, masturbating regularly and freaking out a woman on the New York subway after leering at her for just too long. His life revolves around where he's going to get his next fix, be it online, with a prostitue or a midnight encounter with a random woman in a bar. His obsession is his life, and while he's able to live it in private he appears in control. When his estranged sister Sissy (Mulligan) arrives at his flat dragging the emotional baggage of another bad relationship, Brandon's bubble bursts.

Though by no means an arthouse film, director Steve McQueen does a lot of unconventional things to make the film exceptionally unsettling to watch. For example, he makes good use of single long takes in 'Shame'. When Sissy sings her desperately sad rendition of 'New York New York' the camera is in Carey Mulligan's face for several minutes, nowhere for the actress or the audience to escape. Brandon's failed attempt to have sex with his new girlfriend is done in a single shot. Brandon and Sissy have an emotional argument face-to-face in the same style as McQueen's brilliant argument between Bobby Sands and his priest in 'Hunger' - there is a moment where Mulligan's American accent seems to slip in the middle of this scene, but I'll give her a pass as everything else she does is amazing. The long shots give the actors a chance to achieve something special, without cuts or editing they throw the full gamut of emotions into their performances.

The film has an 18 rating, plenty of drugs as well as the relentless sex scenes make that justified. In addition there is a horrific sequence of attempted suicide in which the director refuses to allow events to happen off camera. It's not a film for people looking for a light-hearted trip to the cinema or evening in with a bowl of pop corn. This is a heavy and depressing film, but one that's stylist, interesting to watch and says a lot about addiction in general. It's not entirely a festival of depression though, there is light relief in the notable form of a waiter probably on his first day trying to get everything right but failing utterly. Again, all in a single shot and brilliant.

The Camberley Vue is not my normal cinema of choice, but of course none of the places nearest to home were showing Shame. Stupid that very few cinemas seem interested in showing a British film written and directed by British people starring young British talent? It's not as if the film's totally arthouse, Fassbender and Mulligan are big stars who do fantastically well in it. And not even a single mention at the Oscars? Seriously, how does Transformers get in before this?

Shamefull.