Steve McQueen’s beautifully crafted drama recalls Drive, and not just for transforming Manhattan into the same gritty, jaded demimonde as Refn’s Los Angeles. There should be an APB going out to intense, blue-eyed loners across America: “STAY AWAY FROM CAREY MULLIGAN SHE WILL PIERCE YOUR STYLISH SHELL OF URBAN ALIENATION AND FLOOD YOUR METICULOUSLY EMPTY LIFE.”
Here, Mulligan is cabaret singer Sissy, who shares with her brother Brandon (Michael Fassbender) a troubled past that’s disturbing for only ever being hinted at. In a key scene, dense with meaning, she turns ‘New York, New York’ into a haunting torch song as Brandon watches, eyes aglisten, with his cocky boss David (James Badge Dale).
The production and costume design underline that whatever “bad place” these siblings have escaped has forged them as opposites. She’s brittle, warm, hungry for intimacy and bleeding vulnerability; he’s smooth, cool, chasing isolation through his compulsion for anonymous orgasms, and shying from a coworker, Marianne (Nicole Beharie), whom he might actually like. I found the film’s ending subtly hopeful.
WIN
Thanks to Transmission, we have a prize pack comprising a dbl pass and a special mirrored poster so you can contemplate your own shame! To enter, email
brisbane.win@thethousands.com.au with the subject ‘we’re not bad people – we just come from a bad place’
