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Young Adam
EMAILPRINTSony Pictures Classics
Generally favorable reviews
Based on 32 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 16 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Crime | Drama | Suspense/Thriller
Written by:
David Mackenzie
Alexander Trocchi (novel)
Directed by: David Mackenzie
Release Date:
Theatrical: April 16, 2004
DVD: September 14, 2004
Running Time: 93 minutes, Color
Origin: UK / France
Summary
RATING: NC-17 for some explicit sexual content
Starring Ewan McGregor, Tilda Swinton, Peter Mullan, Emily Mortimer, Jack McElhone, Therese Bradley, Ewan Stewart, and Stuart McQuarrie
Based on Scottish beat writer Alexander Trocchi's novel and inspired by the great Hollywood film noirs of the 40s and 50s, Young Adam is a highly original thriller set on the canals between Glasgow and Edinburgh. (HanWay Films)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Asylum Mister Foe
MUSIC: David Byrne: Lead Us Not Into Temptation [Music From The Film Young Adam]
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
The clammy power of Young Adam lies as much in the frank, emotional nakedness the actors bring to their roles under Mackenzie's care as in the baroque hopelessness of the plot.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Rich Cline
This is a finely crafted film for grown-ups only ... and it's hard to remember the last time we had one that was this provocative and moving.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
It's a movie drama with a surface so bleak and an interior so hot with eroticism that it twists your guts to watch it.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
This is an almost Dostoyevskian study of a man brooding upon evil until it paralyzes him.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
Despite the flashback structure, this is a film in which mood matters more than plot, while the hero's heroic stature steadily shrinks.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Gregory Weinkauf
Those seeking a spiritual counterpart to the yin of Lynne Ramsay's masterfully moody "Morvern Callar" will find their yang in David Mackenzie's exquisitely sorrowful Young Adam.
Read Full Review >Variety Derek Elley
All of the promise that was evident in Scottish helmer David Mackenzie's flawed freshman feature, "The Last Great Wilderness" (2002), is richly achieved in his second pic, Young Adam, a resonant, beautifully modulated relationships drama.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly John Powers
The movie is another showcase for the underappreciated McGregor, who disappears into his character so discreetly that, even as his face lets us track Joe's every thought, you never feel you’re watching a Performance.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marrit Ingman
The film is set in post-WWII Scotland, but its tone and its telling are so stark, so Medieval, that it seems anachronistic when one of its characters picks up a telephone or plays a bebop jazz record.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Connie Ogle
Not so much a thriller as an exploration of one man's crumbling moral compass.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Carla Meyer
Tilda Swinton's rich, compelling performance is reason enough to see this uneven picture, which devolves from a riveting romantic triangle to a morality tale without a moral center.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
Also quite fine is the film's musical score from David Byrne, as unsettling and edgy as the story.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
Rich atmospherics and an all-star British cast make this a superior melodrama if you can handle the heavy-breathing sex scenes.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
Darkly effective, and its grip lasts longer than we might be entirely comfortable with.
Read Full Review >Premiere Glenn Kenny
It’s rich enough in atmosphere to make you almost buy the quasi-allegorical absurdities.
Read Full Review >USA Today Mike Clark
This movie is so much the opposite of uplifting that you think Gary Oldman ought to be in it. But it's honestly made, and its second half does linger in the memory.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
Besides terrific performances, it boasts terrific cinematography by Giles Nuttgens that contrasts stunningly beautiful and grimly ugly Scottish landscapes - complementing the hunky Joe's ugly soul, which manifests itself in a truly nasty sex scene involving pudding, catsup and Cathie.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Manohla Dargis
Mackenzie has greatly tempered the story's brutality the old-fashioned way: He puts an appealing, sympathetic star at the center and surrounds him with beautiful visuals, with a darkly contrasting color palette of bruising black and blue.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Jessica Winter
Doesn't quite know how to take its leave; it tapers off like a curling cigarette trail, but it lingers like a ghost.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps
In this long, slow fall from grace, unceremonious nudity and half-hearted sex begin to look like a mockery of a paradise lost.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Ken Fox
MacGregor demonstrates just how far he's come as an actor. Swinton, meanwhile, adds another notch to a resume already crowded with good performances.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman
There are movies that are important, and then there are movies that simply look and act as if they're important. With its arthouse cast, hipster credentials and ominous atmosphere, Young Adam never bothers to reach for real significance.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
Unfolds with an absolute minimum of dramatic highs and lows, and it's so disaffected that it prompts laughter at the wrong moments.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
All the actors give performances so low-key they're almost minimalist. That works, except when we're supposed to believe every woman would throw herself at the closed-off Joe.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Dana Stevens
The narrative scheme, the brooding period atmosphere, the understated score (by David Byrne) and the precision of the acting also make the story seem more interesting than it is.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker
Presents itself as tragedy with the insensitive Joe as its tragic hero, but Joe's fantasies of artistic rebellion and individualism have rotted into simple, solipsistic selfishness.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
In the Scotland of Young Adam, love is getting dragged through the mud.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Karen Karbo
In this moody, claustrophobic almost-thriller -- the pacing is as sluggish as the Scottish canals that serve as its setting.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Stephen Hunter
It's a diversion, well crafted by Mackenzie from a book by Alexander Trocchi, but little more than that.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Suffers from a lifelessness that seems built into the terse, slightly detached style of the director, David Mackenzie, who also did the adaptation.
What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 6.6 (out of 10) based on 16 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Matt A. gave it a7:
This is one of those films that you respect and admire more than you actually like it. I would not recommend this movie to 90% of the people that I know, and I wouldn't want to watch this movie again. Why? First of all, Ewan's penis shot. Second, it is depressing and Ewan's character is a bastard. But, the film is actually so memorable and well-done because of Ewan's performance. It is probably his finest work to date, and for that reason (along with teaching a good lesson not to sleep around), the film works.
Pilar J. gave it a1:
The film doesn't have argument. Everything could be counted in two lines. A boredom.
Benji the Great gave it a 7:
Good performances throughout, but besides capturing some of the dirtiest, most revolting sex scenes ever filmed, it didnt serve much of a purpose and its plot was paper-thin.
Greg T. gave it an 8:
A brooding dark movie set in a brooding dark Scottish locale. Even the daylight shots lack light. Ewan McGregor was superb as always, shlong exposed and all and he portrays very well a man whose dick rules his head and who therefore loses his ethics in the end.
Bracko M. gave it a 10:
Sve je super..hello from bosnia.
Stinky Lulu gave it an 8:
Subtitle this "Portrait of the Sociopath as a Young Man." Ewan MacGregor, along with the excellent score, make this very meditative film more and more satisfying as it slumbers along. It's slow. The sex is graphic, at times brutal, and never very sexy. But Ewan MacGregor and Tilda Swinton are amazing, just amazing.
Ken B. gave it a 4:
I do not believe that the director gave the viewer sufficient reason to believe that the main character would walk away from his duty to tell the truth. While the character clearly had no moral qualms about sleeping with whatever woman he could, he was still portrayed as an otherwise decent man. Telling the truth had at most minor consequences for him; the moral delima was unsupported. The sex was portrayed as we might have expected in the past -- with sufficient shame that the lighting was always dim, the camera positioned such that nothing was seen, and the male having sex through the fly of his trousers. The presentation made me feel guilty about sex like I did as a young boy. We need to get rid of our guilt over sex. If the characters are having sex, let's be comfortable with it. Thank god for directors like Catherine Breillat, Julio Medem, and Despentes/Thi who treat sex in an open and unashamed manner.
