If you loved Steve McQueen's astonishing debut, Hunger, you'll no doubt have Shame, his follow up, near the top of your viewing wishlist over the next 12 months. January 13, its UK release, is the date to circle in your diary. Recently announced in this year's Toronto Film Festival line-up, it also has a few new stills to offer a flavour of McQueen's second feature.
Starring Michael Fassbender as a 30-something New Yorker who has issues controlling his sexual appetites, **Shame **sets the Irishman alongside Carey Mulligan (pictured) as his sister, Nicole Beharie, who plays his new flame Marianne, and boss James Badge Dale.
It's billed as "a compelling and timely examination of the nature of need, how we live our lives and the experiences that shape us", an oblique synopsis that leaves plenty of scope for the leftfield directorial choices and quicksilver shifts in tone that illuminated Hunger. It's far too early to proclaim McQueen cinema's newest auteur but his character study of Bobby Sands had a visual style every bit as unique as you'd expect from Turner Prize winning artist.
It's definitely not too early to proclaim 2011 the year of the Fassbender sexual neurosis. Between his character in Shame, Jung in A Dangerous Method (another Toronto pick), Raven-seducing Magneto in X-Men: First Class and the brooding, tortured Rochester in Jane Eyre, he's packing some serious hang-ups.
**Shame **will be out in the UK from January 13.