Accident? Suicide? Murder?
A hauntingly faithful adaptation of the novel by the Scottish Beat writer Alexander Trocchi, Young Adam is a moody, sensual thriller set on the canals between Glasgow and Edinburgh during the 1950s.
Ewan McGregor stars as Joe, a young drifter who finds work on a barge owned by sexually repressed couple Les Gault (Peter Mullen) and Ella (Tilda Swinton). One afternoon Joe and Les happen upon the corpse of a young woman floating in the water, and the questions begin: Did Joe know the woman? Was her death an accident? Suicide? Murder?
As the police investigate and a suspect is arrested, it becomes evident that Joe knows more than he's letting on. Meanwhile, against the backdrop of the "murder" investigation, Joe and Ella embark on an intimate and passionate affair.
Special Agent Matti
Young Adam - and I still haven't figured out why it's called that - is a "sensual thriller" in that you never know whether the killer will be caught and there's lots of rooting. You also get to see Ewan McGregor's penis (flaccid), Tilda Swinton's breasts and Emily Mortimer's snatch. It's also pretty scary because for the first half hour I thought it was set in the present. Working class Scotland is a horror in the 1950s and hasn't changed much in the new millennium (see My name is Joe).
And they all drink endless cups of tea. I don't know what the British would do without it. And they're pasty. There's not a tan-line amongst them.
MA 15+ (High level sex scenes, nudity)
94 minutes (1:34 hours)
Film: 7 April 2005
DVD rental: 24 August 2005
VHS rental: 24 August 2005
DVD retail: 29 March 2006
