Philippa Snow at The Baffler:
It occurred to me, when thinking about Ronnie’s bathroom scene, that this is not McQueen’s first time depicting the repressed, deep-seated trauma of a wealthy but unhappy individual on film: that Shame, whose central character appeared to have developed sex-addiction in the wake of some unspecified, formative trauma—maybe psychic, maybe physical—addressed a similar, if not entirely symmetrical, ache. The sex addict, Brandon, as played in the key of Patrick Bateman by the Irish actor Michael Fassbender, also contained his introspection and his self-injurious anger within the confines of the bathroom. Often, his releases there were masturbatory. So, on some level, was the movie; lacking detailed and elucidating background information, Brandon’s tragedy became the tragedy of a successful, very handsome white man tortured by the need to regularly have sex with one or more women who resemble fashion models. (Brandon’s kookily sad sister, Sissy, is so white that she is played by Carey Mulligan, and is called Sissy. His apartment, in what might be seen as a reflection of his inner turmoil, is white and expensive, but lit so that above all else, it looks blue.)
more here.