MOVIE MOLE SAYS:

Moles don't really understand humans; you're messy balls of self-loathing, lust, ego, blood and bones and to be honest I feel more at home underground. I know where I am in the dark. Shame, Steve McQueen's hit film of 2011, helps clarify this point even more.

Humans are mad. Wonderfully, wonderfully mad.

Michael Fassbender, in his boldest role to date, plays Brandon, a 30-something man living comfortably in New York. He's pretty adept at balancing a busy job and active social life, not to mention sating his powerfully lusty desires. Sex addiction is a difficult topic to cover but, in Shame, they have done so with style.

While Brandon provides us with an unbearably self-destructive character, Carey Mulligan provides a necessary contrast with her performance as the vivacious, intriguing Sissy, Brandon’s sister. The doe-eyed minx shows up at Brandon's apartment unannounced and slowly sends his carefully managed lifestyle spiralling out of control.

These siblings are damaged. In fact, strike that. They're not damaged at all - their relationship has been shattered into a million tiny pieces. It's apparent in their every mood, their every glance, their every unspoken moment - just check out how intently Brandon watches Sissy as she performs a mournful jazz number in a nearby club. Or his reaction to hearing her having sex in the next room. Every moment offers another clue to their relationship, but also opens up more questions. This film is like one of those origami fortune tellers, folding in and out on itself constantly.

Something dark happened to these two in their childhood, but what? What is sitting in between them? What is going unsaid? Why does Brandon find himself so unnerved by Sissy's presence? Whoever knew Carey Mulligan was such a good singer?

This unflinching drama forces us to look at the nature of need, the uses and abuses of the human body and the experiences that shape us. It is captivating, it is mesmerising and it is brutal. McQueen has forced Fassbender to strip himself down (literally) for this interrogation into what it means to be a human in modern society, and the performance he draws out is a remarkable one.

Can you handle the elegant brutality of Shame? Only one* way to find out... Come rent it from Flicks! It’s released on May 14^th. In the meantime, check out Fassbender’s other films, or the work of director Steve McQueen and Carey Mulligan. Mole OUT!

(*other ways do exist, but they’re lame...)