Film Reviews by VT

Shame is a powerful, moving and deeply compassionate film about damaged, dissociated people, with stunning performances from Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan. "We're not bad people," says Sissy, "we just came from a bad place."

I was wary of another film by Steve McQueen after Hunger which was an emotionally detached study of the Irish Republican Bobby Sands and his last days in prison on hunger strike.

Shame is just as well crafted and beautifully shot as Hunger but far more humane, both in the vulnerability Carey Mulligan brings to the part of Sissy and the depth of Fassbender's performance.

This film is about running away from the traumas of the past - which are not disclosed in the narrative - and the tragedy of addiction.