Young Adam (2003)

Featured Audience Ratings

• Drew S

  
  Make no mistake - this is an incredibly difficult watch. Grim, moody, and dry as a bleached bone, Young Adam feels enervated every step of the way. It's not exactly a picture of great rewards either; it's bursting with eroticism, but it seems mired in the personal miseries… More
  Make no mistake - this is an incredibly difficult watch. Grim, moody, and dry as a bleached bone, Young Adam feels enervated every step of the way. It's not exactly a picture of great rewards either; it's bursting with eroticism, but it seems mired in the personal miseries of its participants and the filming of the deeds is much less about titillation than naked, ugly ribaldry. In a way, Young Adam is a great actorly curio, putting a handful of brave performers in front of us and asking them to do some uncomfortable things. This is by far the most irrepressibly sad Tilda Swinton has ever been on film, underlined by an unexpected crying jag and some really misguided emotional decisions. Ewan McGregor doesn't seem terribly conservative about appearing nude in movies, but bumpin' and grindin' against no fewer than four of your female costars for any given amount of takes must get awkward at some point. Perhaps the greatest humiliation of all is spared for Emily Mortimer in a scene too bizarre and too vital to be spoiled. It's an absolutely excellent, vivid, repugnant character moment, something that tells us more about Joe than the sum of all his actions for the past hour had. Honestly, I wasn't really affected in any particular way by this movie. I was impressed, sure, and held effectively in thrall. I didn't feel like anything meaningful had been said or shown, though. In that way I guess it's a very modernist product, where the film's aim is a collective contract between the text, the auteur and the audience and we're left to disentangle the meaning from the events left to us. Young Adam is temporally neutral and extremely simple and would probably make the most sense to a viewer as a really, really depressing slice of life. It's got the whole "karma is dead" thing from Match Point going on, where injustice seems to be the name of the game and the characters resolve themselves to what befalls them. Kudos also to the film's sensibly chopped-and-screwed narrative structure, hanging its greatest mystery halfway through and letting the rest of the piece resolve itself as a character study. The performances are uniformly committed (though I think McGregor, able as he is, is miscast as a character who should be devoid of softness), the photography is nice in its low-budget austerity, and the cinematographic direction is suitably subtle and observant. I don't think the movie necessarily does anything WRONG, but it's too dour even for me, and ultimately uncritical of its characters. Again, the movie is a challenging watch, but sadly not for the right reasons.

• Veronique K

  
  young adam does aim highly but it fails silently in a quite mediocre way. okay, so it's about a young bargeman who discovers some dead woman's body by the barge with the elder bargeman who rents him the little room on the barge...then next thing is he's shagging the… More
  young adam does aim highly but it fails silently in a quite mediocre way. okay, so it's about a young bargeman who discovers some dead woman's body by the barge with the elder bargeman who rents him the little room on the barge...then next thing is he's shagging the bargeman's wife then he follows his dick over every female he encounters as long as she's got a puss. it turns out the dead woman is his ex-girlfriend who just falls off to the bay after having some reminscent sex with him under the trunk, and it was very dark, so dark that he couldn't find her. then he throws all her accessories away then escape the scene. what follows next is another man takes the blame for him, and he doesn't have the nerve to stand out and take the risk of being accused of murder. he writes some anonymous letter to the judge about the truth, which doesn't help. this coward tosses away the last piece of remains of his former-lover and walks away. i watched it because of its notoriety of having notorious tagged as nc-17 due to the cunniligus scene and the frontal shot of ewan mcgregor's privacy (which has had its celluiod appearance in velvet goldmine and the pillow book)....and what's the point about young adam, who is a former writer-wanna-be, a bum who's been fed by his girlfriend but refuses to marry her, the guy who bestows his sex on every-woman who lay eyes on him as if it's some sort of gratuitous boy-scout services..maybe IF adam eventually goes to the police or the judge to reveal the truth...there might be some melodramatic tension added to redeem this picture. but he just sits there as a guilty bystander and let a man get hung. the path of the movie runs also quite slow. and the sex scenes are plain depsite in one scene, ewan macgregor tries to do what marlon brando does in "last tango in paris" to showcase some brutish magnetism by throwing a custard over naked woman then performs the the fonication behind...but the result is just you see a man tries to pose as brando-ish sexpot and it's not stirring at all. the sexs are menchanical without passion or antagonism but abscent-minded easy virtues. just absurd, and no spark. definitely not sexy. nc-17 is SO wasted on this film....even the trashy "show girl" has something more fun and watchable depsite its blatant cheesy stupidity.

• Lady D

  
  A well appreciated film all around it seems, yet I found the story to be very slow moving. The interest no doubt, heightened with the nudity and bed-hopping of Ewan Mcgregor?s character, whilst the story itself is an interesting one, I feel this could have been condensed somewhat… More
  A well appreciated film all around it seems, yet I found the story to be very slow moving. The interest no doubt, heightened with the nudity and bed-hopping of Ewan Mcgregor?s character, whilst the story itself is an interesting one, I feel this could have been condensed somewhat and was very underwhelmed by it?s ending.

• Anthony L

  
  I was disanointed by this film to be honest. It started out as an intriguing thriller but soon just turned into a disturbing sex film. Peter Mullan is a great actor and his talents are wasted in this film and the custard sex scene was just wrong!

• Gordon A

  
  Intensely erotic.

• Dean M

  
  The performances of Ewan McGregor is excellent in this hot drama film as an emotionally unrealised drifter fleeing a black secret down the chilly canals of 1950s Scotland only to have his past haunt and torment him. Emily Mortimer is more hotter as Ewan's first lover in the… More
  The performances of Ewan McGregor is excellent in this hot drama film as an emotionally unrealised drifter fleeing a black secret down the chilly canals of 1950s Scotland only to have his past haunt and torment him. Emily Mortimer is more hotter as Ewan's first lover in the flashback than Tilda Swinton.

• Megan S

  
  This movie was pretty boring in between sex scenes, some of which were pretty disturbing. Ewan's character was just a horny bastard and he didn't really care whose lives he ruined along the way. The special features on the DVD included audio files of Ewan that they had… More
  This movie was pretty boring in between sex scenes, some of which were pretty disturbing. Ewan's character was just a horny bastard and he didn't really care whose lives he ruined along the way. The special features on the DVD included audio files of Ewan that they had originally recorded as a narration to the film but they decided they weren't necessary...at least it would have made the movie more interesting.

• Jens S

  
  Well acted, but too gloomy and depressing to be enjoybale.

• Mike N

  
  I think the snow in Colorado has had a profound psychological impact on me, because I'm pretty darn freaking full of Holiday Cheer. No, really. I think I've doubled my Christmas music input (at the behest of my mother ;)) and am actually keeping up on my advent calendar (I… More
  I think the snow in Colorado has had a profound psychological impact on me, because I'm pretty darn freaking full of Holiday Cheer. No, really. I think I've doubled my Christmas music input (at the behest of my mother ;)) and am actually keeping up on my advent calendar (I sometimes forget a day or two). Well, it's more the "White Christmas" notion than anything that has me giddy. The Rocky Mountains will get a potent injection of Neum this holiday season. Snowboarding, icefishing & roasting chestnuts are already-scheduled mountain getaways. Perhaps I'll hunt down a jackalope on a snow-shoe expedition, too... with my nerf guns. [size=1]Oh, I've got an eclectic Nerf arsenal if anybody wants to come check out my stockpile. A couple of these babies in your holsters and a few Koosh grenades and the World of Mischief will bow to your every whim! Hmm, that doesn't quite sound right coming from a person of my age. And this is me, not caring: *me, not caring*[/size] Was slightly ill last week. At least that's my best guess for the dragon scales that grew in my throat. I fought back the disease with a regimin of scolding hot ciders, teas, soups, and some vicious sleep. The more-than-4-hours kind of sleep. But before this malady high-tailed it away from my antibody death squads and the immunoglobulin cavalry, it left me an early Christmas gift: a pair of sniffly nostrils. *sniff* The gift that keeps on running. Oh. I have a 'new' avatar. It is the first change to my av since I first uploaded the immortal Homer + Chainsaw av back in March of 2002. 31 months of same-av-ness. *the wind whistles* Yeah. I can take a hint. History schmistory. "Bring out the glamour already!" they say. "And bringeth I shall," I say. Behold, the Christmas Neum's new style! *cue catwalk funk music* [img]http://userimages.rottentomatoes.com/profiles/23/10323/11341bd4af53fafc.jpg[/img] [size=1]Work it, baby! Blue Steel![/size]

• Daisy M

  
  Young Adam is not a film of who did it, concerning Cathy's death. The story focuses on Joe, his view on life, his usual actions, and how he uses sex as a weapon while running from himself. After watching this film, you may actually feel bad for him, despite his wrongdoing… More
  Young Adam is not a film of who did it, concerning Cathy's death. The story focuses on Joe, his view on life, his usual actions, and how he uses sex as a weapon while running from himself. After watching this film, you may actually feel bad for him, despite his wrongdoing throughout the whole film. Joe is obviously wanting to feel something in his life. Joe is a man on the run, from himself and from his conscience. He is rebellious, irresponsible and dangerous. To sum this up, this film is not a happy film but I found it dark. The ending was not clear enough but left me instead in thoughts. I can't exactly say what makes this film so interesting but the whole aspect of Joe's life will make many become interested in wanting to know this man.This is a film you'll either love-it or hate-it.

• Henrik S

  
  Deep from gritty Scotland comes this diamond in the rough, whose sharpe edges work for and not against the film. The film is a diamond because of the interesting narrative perspective which follows two temporal strings at once and the stellar cast of British veterans Ewan McGregor and… More
  Deep from gritty Scotland comes this diamond in the rough, whose sharpe edges work for and not against the film. The film is a diamond because of the interesting narrative perspective which follows two temporal strings at once and the stellar cast of British veterans Ewan McGregor and Tilda Swinton as well as amazing Scottish B-Movie actor Peter Mullen. The movie is rough though because it is bleak and barren, which does fit the general mood of the plot as, the protagonist's inner world as well as the grim Scottish channeldocks setting. Yet, the movie is a very interesting mix of gloomy blue and occassional (quite a lot) dazzling decadent sex scenes, which take place in all sorts of places, on the street, in a backalley, on a boat etc. and all feature Ewan McGregor and various dames in the nude. The movie is a clash of psychological study and some kind of post-industrial bohemia. I do not want to give too much away about the plot but the crux is the demise of young lady who is found by two bargemen (Mullen & McGregor) drowned in the sea. The movie follows the events before and after her death at the same time. A good movie which should appeal for anyone who is interested in the dark side of humanity and/or British Indie Film Making. Or if you just want to see loads of raunchy sex scenes with a naked Ewan McGregor. Both are valid claims in my opinion. Henrik

• Sunil J

  
  Really bizarre and dark but watchable.

• rocko p

  
  I can never put my finger on what the point of this movie is... it's shockingly entertaining though.

Read all 13 featured audience ratings