Shame Reviews
Urban Cinefile
Shame explores depravation of another kind. Sexual perversion is the obsession of the protagonist, who can only find pleasure from the debauched
Movies for the Masses
full review at Movies for the Masses
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
Tampa Bay Times
Shame smears the lines between daring and taunting, and art versus indulgence. When it ends there's the urge to take a shower, and not a cold one.
Full Review
| Original Score: C
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
McQueen again proves that he is not averse to breaking taboos while exploring the uncomfortable and unthinkable. Nor is he afraid of stirring up a little fear and loathing in the process.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
Quickflix
It may be hard to sympathise with a man as well endowed and frequently bed-bound as Brandon, but Shame's success rests on its ability to rise above controversial talking points and be a thoughtful character drama about the lengths people go to dull pain.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
Cinema Autopsy
Despite the themes of detachment Shame is somehow also a beautiful film with just enough warm light glowing around the screen's edges to keep the audience entranced.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
The Sun Herald
McQueen's film is breathtaking in its execution. Fassbender delivers his finest performance yet. Why he hasn't received the expected Oscar rubs remains a mystery.
Full Review
| Original Score: 9/10
ABC Radio Brisbane
The story is fascinating in itself but it's Steve McQueen's careful direction that gives it a seductive, hypnotic edge.
Full Review
| Original Score: A
Times-Picayune
Searing performances breathe life into this NC-17-rated portrait of a sex addict.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
Laramie Movie Scope
Proves the old John Waters adage that the establishment thinks it is O.K. to have graphic sex scenes in movies, as long as the participants don't seem to be enjoying it.
Full Review
| Original Score: C
KC Active
McQueen accomplishes no small feat by keeping our attention as we wait to wake up from Brandon's nightmare.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Michael Fassbender gives a harrowing and haunting performance, a revealing portrait both physically and at its emotional core.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN)
The genitals are exposed while the motivations are mysterious in 'Shame,' an elegantly composed but overwrought film about a man who wants to f(ornicate) away the pain.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
Creative Loafing
Fassbender was compelling as Rochester in Jane Eyre, as Carl Jung in A Dangerous Method and especially as Magneto in X-Men: First Class, but it was his role in Shame that allowed him to most fully expose himself, in more ways than one.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
Fresno Bee
An exercise in sadness so deep and aching that it's like plunging ever downward into a midnight-black lake and never touching the bottom.
Full Review
| Original Score: A
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
The film is a raw, unsparing look at the downside of humanity.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/4
Uncut Magazine [UK]
[A] bracing and unsettling film about sex addiction in New York that features a powerful central performance from Michael Fassbender.
Flick Filosopher
What is shocking about Shame is the male vulnerability, the male weakness, the abject male misery we see onscreen. Movies simply don't do this. Movies protect the male ego...
Movie Talk
Mulligan's Sissy sings a slowed-down version of 'New York, New York' that strips the song of brashness and bravado, turning it from an anthem of triumph into an admission of sadness and vulnerability.
Birmingham Mail
The film is beautifully directed, stunningly shot and very well acted. ... But as an experience, it's not one I'd be wishing to repeat any time soon.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
