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Ewan McGregor, Tilda Swinton, Peter Mullan, Emily Mortimer, Jack McElhone ... see more see more... , Therese Bradley , Ewan Stewart , Stuart McQuarrie , Pauline Turner , Alan Cooke , Rory McCann

An amoral young man wends his way into the lives of a handful of damaged souls in this adaptation of British Beat Generation writer Alexander Trocchi's first novel. Written for the screen and directed... read more read more... by David Mackenzie, Young Adam begins with the discovery of a barely dressed woman's corpse by two barge workers, Joe (Ewan McGregor) and Leslie (Peter Mullan). A taciturn drifter, Joe hoists the body ashore with little distress, and the ensuing police investigation does little to ruffle his day-to-day existence on the barge. But his behavior becomes more and more erratic, and as he begins a torrid affair with Leslie's downtrodden wife Ella (Tilda Swinton), flashbacks reveal a similarly cruel encounter he once had with a young woman named Cathie (Emily Mortimer). Young Adam premiered at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival before securing berths at the Toronto and New York Film Festivals later that year. ~ Michael Hastings, Rovi

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47% liked it

7,992 ratings

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62% liked it

116 critics

NC-17, 1 hr. 38 min.

Directed by: David Mackenzie

Release Date: April 16, 2004

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DVD Release Date: September 14, 2004

Stats: 481 reviews

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Emily Mortimer Ewan McGregor + Tilda Swinton Emily Mortimer Tilda Swinton + Ewan McGregor + Peter Mullan Ewan McGregor Emily Mortimer Emily Mortimer Ewan McGregor + Emily Mortimer Ewan McGregor + Emily Mortimer Ewan McGregor Ewan McGregor + Emily Mortimer Tilda Swinton + Ewan McGregor Ewan McGregor + Emily Mortimer Ewan McGregor + Emily Mortimer TILDA SWINTON & EWAN MCGREGOR Tilda Swinton Young Adam Young Adam
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Flixster Reviews (481)

  • ceWEBrity
    September 8, 2010
    ceWEBrity
    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... read more 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.
  • groaningbitch
    July 13, 2010
    groaningbitch
    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 wi... read morefe 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.
  • 76Majikat
    December 22, 2009
    76Majikat
    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 somewha... read moret and was very underwhelmed by it?s ending.
  • SirPant
    September 17, 2009
    SirPant
    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!
  • gor41
    October 6, 2007
    gor41
    Intensely erotic.
  • deano
    May 13, 2007
    deano
    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 flash... read moreback than Tilda Swinton.
  • purplemegan
    April 29, 2007
    purplemegan
    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 original... read morely recorded as a narration to the film but they decided they weren't necessary...at least it would have made the movie more interesting.
  • ironclad1609
    July 20, 2006
    ironclad1609
    Well acted, but too gloomy and depressing to be enjoybale.
  • michaelneumann
    December 12, 2004
    michaelneumann
    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 some... read moretimes 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]
  • mvieaddict
    June 11, 2009
    mvieaddict
    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 through... read moreout 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.

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Critic Reviews

Bill Muller
June 10, 2004
Bill Muller, Arizona Republic

Whether you're talking about Young Adam the movie or young Adam the character, neither is very likable. Full Review

Joe Baltake
June 4, 2004
Joe Baltake, Sacramento Bee

A brave film. Full Review

Peter Howell
May 28, 2004
Peter Howell, Toronto Star

Young Adam haunts like a loyalty betrayed or a secret never revealed. Full Review

Jay Boyar
May 28, 2004
Jay Boyar, Orlando Sentinel

The narrative, with its provocative flashbacks, is just interesting enough to propel the movie forward. Full Review

Tom Long
May 28, 2004
Tom Long, Detroit News

A movie that seems to think it's more interesting than it really is.

Rick Groen
May 28, 2004
Rick Groen, Globe and Mail

Mackenzie shoots the ensuing tryst with more fidelity than it deserves or needs. Full Review

Stephen Hunter
May 14, 2004
Stephen Hunter, Washington Post

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

Michael O'Sullivan
May 14, 2004
Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post

A compelling if singularly sour tale of a young man's moral paralysis. Full Review

Carrie Rickey
May 13, 2004
Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer

The ever-mesmerizing McGregor delivers the most complex performance of his career.

Jeff Strickler
May 6, 2004
Jeff Strickler, Minneapolis Star Tribune

The film's viewpoint on these sad characters and their sordid behavior has an allure that's hard to refute. Full Review

Critic ratings and reviews powered by RottenTomatoes.com

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  • In which movie does Ewan McGregor throw custard all over Emily Mortimer?  Answer »
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  • He was Curt Wild in "Velvet Goldmine" John Grimes in "Black Hawk Down" Joe Taylor in "Young Adam" Obi-Wan in "Star Wars"   Answer »
  • In which movie did Adam Sandler play Drew Barrymores strapping young lad which she fell in love with?   Answer »
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