Knightley gives her best performance ever. What great physical work from her.

Fassbender and Mortensen (and Cassel) are also terrific. It's just a smartly-written, simply filmed flick.

I did feel the passages of time were sometimes unclear-- it's hard to make a film cover so much time without the burden of exposition, and they did *okay* dealing with that issue.

Still, if you want to see a film about compulsion for sex, see this instead of Shame.