The unquestionable talents of Ewan McGregor, Tilda Swinton, Peter Mullan, and Emily Mortimer go largely for naught in Young Adam, a film of dark, disenchanting characters who tread water in moral ambiguity for 98 minutes. McGregor plays Joe, a nebulous, failed beatnik writer who has bitterly given up the pen and taken a grimy, hard-labor job on a cramped coal barge that travels the backwater canals of 1950s Scotland. Vacant of disposition and void of moral fiber, he becomes both a reluctant drinking buddy to his boss (Mullan) and an opportunistic lover to the boss's weary, vinegary wife (Swinton), as well as the discoverer of a girl's dead body floating along the Glasgow waterfront. In several volatile, sexually abusive, chronologically muddled flashbacks, director David Mackenzie slowly reveals that Joe, suspiciously, knew the girl in his past life. But over the course of the story, even attending the trial of the man falsely accused of her murder has no significant impact on the guy, and his character doesn't develop in any discernable way. Young Adam may have intensity, grit and turbulent sexuality (more emotionally raw than explicit, which--along with McGregor's on-display penis--earned it an NC-17 rating), but it seems to go nowhere emotionally or even allegorically. Not a necessary purchase. [Note: DVD extras include audio commentaries (one by screenwriter-director David Mackenzie; the other by Mackenzie, editor Colin Monie, production designer Laurence Dorman, and costar Tilda Swinton), a three-minute extended scene, three deleted audio segments from Ewan McGregor's “original passage narration,” and trailers. Bottom line: a solid extras package for a disappointing film.] (R. Blackwelder)
Young Adam
Columbia TriStar, 98 min., NC-17, VHS: $50.99, DVD: $24.98, Sept. 14 Volume 19, Issue 5
Young Adam
Star Ratings
As of March 2022, Video Librarian has changed from a four-star rating system to a five-star one. This change allows our reviewers to have a wider range of critical viewpoints, as well as to synchronize with Google’s rating structure. This change affects all reviews from March 2022 onwards. All reviews from before this period will still retain their original rating. Future film submissions will be considered our new 1-5 star criteria.
Order From Your Favorite Distributor Today: