Young Adam

Synopsis: Joe (Ewen McGregor) is a drifter working with the husband-and-wife team of Les (Peter Mullan) and Ella (Tilda Swinton), on a Glasgow-based barge when he finds the body of a semi-naked woman in the water. The discovery touches on his past relationship with a woman named Cathie (Emily Mortimer).

Based on the first novel by Alexander Trocchi, cult Scottish author, prominent figure of the international avant-garde of the 1950s and 60s and life-long heroin addict, Young Adam is an impressive achievement for David Mackenzie, who both directed and wrote the screenplay for this, his second feature.

Acknowledging the strength of Mackenzie's source material there are two main aspects to the film's success. Firstly there is the commitment of directorial vision to creating the lugubrious atmosphere for what is in essence a study in existential alienation. Much of the film is shot in the dark, cramped interior of the barge in which the characters live, in shabby flats or dark, damp streets, all drained of colour. Water is everywhere, whether as falling rain, glistening on roads, the lapping grey sea or the canals that gives the three main characters their living There's more of it than you'll find in a Tarkovsky film, emphasising the drably estranged world that Joe inhabits. Photography by Giles Nuttgens (who shot The Deep End (2001) another very watery film that also starred Tilda Swinton) is superb, whilst David Byrne contributes an evocative score. Set in Glasgow of the 1950s, the film effectively recreates with modest means the oppressive drabness and conformist anonymity of the period.

It is against this backdrop that we witness the story of Joe, like so many young men of his generation, a would-be writer, now slumming with the working class, as he searches for meaning in his life. This is where the second aspect of the film's success comes in, as a study of character. With justice, though without conceding much, Ewan McGregor's performance has been touted as his best since Trainspotting (1996).  His Joe remains throughout largely inexpressive but McGregor manages to articulate his character almost ineffably and certainly believably. In this respect he is helped wonderfully by Tilda Swinton as the woman whom he touches emoonally (and physically) and who for a while draws out the tenderness in him.

A goodly proportion of the film is devoted to sex between these two, and, for Joe has an ability to get tail like no other, between McGregor and other women whose paths he crosses. But be warned, the sex is largely of the penitential kind. As with David Thewlis's Johnny in Mike Leigh's Naked (1993) sex for Joe is a compulsive, guilt-ridden staving off of nothingness. There is no pleasure for him in his desperate couplings and there is, appropriately, no pleasure for the audience in watching it. Yet if Young Adam (and if anyone knows why the film is called this, please let me know) reflects the sombre skies of Presbyterian Scotland and all that that implies, it is not for that to be missed as it is a fine example of intelligent and quietly polished film-making.

 

 

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