Arguably one of the biggest new names in show-business, Michael Fassbender, who helped to bring a lot of credibility to X-Men First Class last year, is about to return again with what looks like one of 2012’s hardest hitting movies, Shame. Co-written and directed by another up and coming cinematic legend in the making, Steve McQueen, it looks stylish, gritty and enthralling in a way that hasn’t been seen in cinema in a while.
Fassbender plays Brandon, a wealthy, mid 30s exec in New York, who lives the high life, following his sex crazed urges (honestly, he seems pretty normal to me, from the look of the trailer) into the arms of any pretty girl that will have him.
However, when his problematic sister, played by Carey Mulligan, moves into his swanky Manhattan apartment, Brandon’s life starts to fall apart and the realities of having a sex problem, along with family troubles to deal with, start to hit home.
As a movie, Shame has vague traces of American Psycho combined with Ken Loach (Looking for Eric) or Shane Meadows (This Is England ’88) realism and down to earth dramatic leverage.
British director, Steve McQueen has previously won the Turner Prize, as well as the Caméra d’Or (first-time director) Award at the Cannes Film Festival for his debut film, Hunger, so Shame will undoubtedly be artistically charged with a high impact script. McQueen’s co-writer for Shame is Abi Morgan, who also wrote the critically acclaimed, The Iron Lady, which will also be released this year.
Shame has a UK cinema release date scheduled for the 13th January 2012. The movie was co-produced by Film4 and See-Saw Films, so it’s a bit of homegrown genius, despite it’s skyscraper setting.
