Before heading into the screening of this film, one of the many things on my mind was that this film from beginning to end would have lots and lots of scenes with our leading actor in lots and lots of compromising positions. I’m not an expert on sex addition, but I gather if that’s all you thought about you would end up having a pretty wild imagination and the obvious pre- shagging introduction of ‘hey honey, let’s just go to bed and make some sweet, sweet love shall we? ’ wasn’t the first thing in his chocolate calendar before bed time!
The story revolves around Brandon a lonely New Yorker who spends his time, going to work and watching porn, going home and watching porn, wanking and perhaps calling in the odd hooker or two. He’s never held down a long term relationship and anyone he comes even close to having any feelings for, he runs for the hills...or the nearest hooker.
When his sister, Carey Mulligan, suddenly appears things don’t exactly improve and by the first night she quickly ends up bedding his dodgy boss. Brandon doesn’t take this too well and pops out for a jog (as people do when their sister is shagging their boss in your bed). He’s a complete clean / routine freak and the mess alone from his sister is enough to drive him to have some very traumatic and angry episodes.
The overall impact of this film though is a powerful one. The performances from both Fassbender and Mulligan are solid and very engaging. Fassbender plays his role top draw, pulling no punches and descending into what I can only describe as pure hell. The horny noose around his neck slowly tightens as he goes out for even bigger kicks, getting rather intimate with New York’s underground sex circus. I hardly recognised Mulligan at first, having only seen her play pretty timid roles before, but she gets stuck into her part big time and has no issues with getting her kit off in its entirety.
I certainly thought I would struggle through this a little bit and perhaps find it a tad slow! But the pace adds to the seedy intensity of our sex obsessed protagonist’s encounters. Even the long drawn out moments with Brandon gazing longingly at woman after woman had me pretty captivated (and perhaps feeling a little uncomfortable to boot). The sex scenes and most certainly the finale (a huge bonk-a-thon) just becomes purely animalistic and grotesque, leaving you feeling pretty exhausted. As I’m sure he probably was filming the bloody thing!
But this flick has stuck with me. Films rarely make that much of an impression and this certainly made its mark. So if you’re looking for a naughty movie with some raunchy sex scenes and a nice bit of acting thrown in, then avoid this at all costs. This is a flick that takes a baseball bat and clobbers you relentlessly with it, throwing you ‘sex mad’ head first into all the suffering that comes along with an addiction like this.
8 northern thumbs out of 10.
