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Young Adam
Sony Pictures Classics


6.6

based on 32 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 16 votes
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FILM:

MUSIC:

David Byrne: Lead Us Not Into Temptation [Music From The Film Young Adam]

MPAA 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)

GENRE(S):	Crime \| Drama \| Suspense/Thriller
WRITTEN BY:	David Mackenzie Alexander Trocchi (novel)
DIRECTED BY:	David Mackenzie
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: September 14, 2004 Video: September 14, 2004 Theatrical: April 16, 2004
RUNNING TIME:	93 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	UK / France

Best New British Feature, 2003 Edinburgh International Film Festival; British Newcomer of the Year (David Mackenzie), 2004 London Critics Circle Film Awards

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.

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.

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.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

This is an almost Dostoyevskian study of a man brooding upon evil until it paralyzes him.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Miami Herald Connie Ogle

Not so much a thriller as an exploration of one man's crumbling moral compass.

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.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Also quite fine is the film's musical score from David Byrne, as unsettling and edgy as the story.

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.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Darkly effective, and its grip lasts longer than we might be entirely comfortable with.

Premiere Glenn Kenny

It’s rich enough in atmosphere to make you almost buy the quasi-allegorical absurdities.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Tepid.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

In the Scotland of Young Adam, love is getting dragged through the mud.

Portland Oregonian Karen Karbo

In this moody, claustrophobic almost-thriller -- the pacing is as sluggish as the Scottish canals that serve as its setting.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

It's a diversion, well crafted by Mackenzie from a book by Alexander Trocchi, but little more than that.

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

A compelling if singularly sour tale.

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.

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.

Young Adam Sony Pictures Classics

Young Adam
Sony Pictures Classics