SEX is empty. That seems to be the message behind Shame, but don’t count on the severely lacking script to tip you off.

Opening with a flurry of sexually charged images, largely silent protagonist Brandon (Michael Fassbender) awakes in soiled sheets, hires a prostitute, flashes his sizeable full frontals several times and hunts a married, if at first flirtatious, woman resplendent in purple in an otherwise grimy, grey subway train.

Written and directed by British artist and sometime filmmaker Steve McQueen (Hunger), with the help of The Iron Lady scribe Abi Morgan, the dialogue – a dubious string of clichés – is scarce.

Brandon clearly can’t get enough empty sex, doing it under bridges with strangers or being beaten for brazenly attempting to pick up a burly bloke’s girlfriend; even resorting to a dalliance with another bloke in a gay bar when the straight club over the road knocks him back.

The only time his prowess seems to fail him is when he whisks a co-worker to a hotel. The viewer is left to assume he can’t seal the deal because he actually has a conversation with this one.

Brandon’s train wreck of a sister, bar singer Sissy (Carey Mulligan), arrives out of the blue and crashes on his couch. When he brings his sleazy, philandering boss (James Badge Dale) to see her sing – an excruciating scene involving a droning rendition of New York, New York – she promptly picks him up in front of her brother.

There are no characters here, only caricatures. Even a fierce fight between the siblings rings hollow, and the horrific consequences are predictable and unmoving because of a complete emotional disconnect.

Apparently theirs was an unhappy childhood, but the film exerts little effort to expand these emotions. In the end, we’re told of Brandon’s inner angst only through long, ponderous stares, sexual grimaces and gurning in the rain at the end of a foggy pier.

Fassbender and Mulligan are undeniably good actors, but their roles are so scantily rendered we’re left bereft of any care. Shame is ultimately a tedious waste of celluloid.