Sex addiction is a trendy topic in print, but fairly novel as a film topic. Most notably it was dealt with in Choke. That uneven 2008 film took a psychoanalytic approach in depicting a grubby main character, whereas director Steve McQueen (not the late actor, but the Brit who directed Hunger) tries a behavioral approach with a more polished one. Michael Fassbender (also the star of Hunger) plays a New York City office worker whose free time is spent on casual sex, purchased or not, alone or not. It’s about a sex addict, but as McQueen and Fassbender portray him could be any white-collar junkie who’s revolted by his own weakness.
More novel, actually, is the brother-sister relationship explored in the film. The sister, a sometimes singer played by Carey Mulligan, is her own kind of basket case, as well as a nuisance interfering, by her presence, with his habit. His revulsion for her instability (and casual approach to sex) and inappropriate behavior, suggests, besides a kind of self-loathing, a troubled family history, though McQueen leaves this mostly suggested. For a film whose very name is an emotion, it’s rather dry, though stylish. A clinical approach can work, as in A Single Man, where fastidious behavior belies inner turmoil. But here the approach comes off as rather bloodless. The grand show of feeling with which the film climaxes is not heartbreaking, but simply gaudy.
viewed 10/21/11 7:55 at Ritz East [Philadelphia Film Festival screening] and reviewed 12/9/11
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