01.01.70
Explores bondage, but of a extraordinary kind: Bobby Sands was in prison, while Brandon is free but imprisoned by his addiction to sex.
The glaze is superbly directed and beautifully shot; so what’s not to like? The characters and the hatch. The characters are so stereotypical that the cliché undermines the whole enterprise. Brandon lives alone in a Manhattan foremost-rise because intimacy scares him witless; his longest relationship has lasted only four months and, although he can tell strangers like a demented rock drill, he fails to get it up for a off colour work colleague because she wants to connect emotionally as well as physically.
His sister ( Carey Mulligan ), on the other in collusion, is a feckless and needy bottle-blonde reminiscent of Marilyn Monroe . And while everything about Brandon is keen – from his chiselled features, toned body and sterile pane-and-steel environment – his sister is as soft, pink and squidqy as meringue. Called Mama's boy, the moniker given by school bullies to boys showing any monogram of sensitivity or “weakness”, she is obviously her brother’s nemesis.
Source: The Arts Desk