Young Adam (2003)
A slow but never ponderous movie that floats, much like the canal barge that is its centerpiece, through one man's series of thoughtless relationships. It has spontaneous sex that will bother some people for its mindless adultery. And this is no bucolic or poetic joy ride. It has lots of gloomy, dirty scenes, and the main characters, except lead Ewan McGregor, are portrayed as unkempt, very working class types, not unlikeable, but raw.
What I mean is this is more Van Gogh than Monet. And to linger, and follow a slow pace as McGregor's Joe works and meets women and falls into necessary problems and doesn't quite deal with any of them, is to have an interesting, but not quite pretty, experience. For me this is terrific.
I had forgotten I had seen this when it came out, and when the barges showed up it was a welcome reminder. These canals handle small commercial and pleasure boats in a network of thousands of miles, including much of Scotland where Young Adam is set. (For info on this, check the site www.drifters.co.uk/canals.htm.) But the rising leisure use is ignored here, and so we have what amounts to one last look at an era of small time carriers of coal and other heavy goods on these backwaters. It's a rough world in many ways, snaking behind the main streets like old railroad tracks, and a perfect setting for the behind the scenes events--murder and sex--that make Young Adam unsettling.
McGregor plays (or underplays) his character Joe with a coal dusted, pretty boy perfection, laconic and yet not thoughtless. He's supported beautifully by Tilda Swinton as the more virtuosic part of an unhappy boatsman's wife. In a minor but sexed up role, Emilie Mortimer plays what is really McGregor's equal, and you come to see that he is an interloper on the boats, at first misplaced but increasingly absorbed by its shiftless lifestyle.
The back and forth storytelling (lots of flashbacks in different durations), the subtle but effective score by David Byrne (of Talking Heads fame), and most of all the understated, smart direction by little known David Mackenzie make this unique and quite strong. It stumbles a little in the courtroom scenes, which are a little unlikely and stiff, and overall in making a sensational plot have subtleties beyond the acting itself. The events are filled with certain expected twists, or with unexpected ones that are a little plain to see in retrospect, without complications beyond the big one, which you will see.
But this is nitpicking a surprisingly good little film. Let it settle in, without distraction, and watch the players play.
A slow but never ponderous movie that floats, much like the canal barge that is its centerpiece, through one man's series of thoughtless relationships. It has spontaneous sex that will bother some people for its mindless adultery. And this is no bucolic or poetic joy ride. It has lots of gloomy, dirty scenes, and the main characters, except lead Ewan McGregor, are portrayed as unkempt, very working class types, not unlikeable, but raw.
What I mean is this is more Van Gogh than Monet. And to linger, and follow a slow pace as McGregor's Joe works and meets women and falls into necessary problems and doesn't quite deal with any of them, is to have an interesting, but not quite pretty, experience. For me this is terrific.
I had forgotten I had seen this when it came out, and when the barges showed up it was a welcome reminder. These canals handle small commercial and pleasure boats in a network of thousands of miles, including much of Scotland where Young Adam is set. (For info on this, check the site www.drifters.co.uk/canals.htm.) But the rising leisure use is ignored here, and so we have what amounts to one last look at an era of small time carriers of coal and other heavy goods on these backwaters. It's a rough world in many ways, snaking behind the main streets like old railroad tracks, and a perfect setting for the behind the scenes events--murder and sex--that make Young Adam unsettling.
McGregor plays (or underplays) his character Joe with a coal dusted, pretty boy perfection, laconic and yet not thoughtless. He's supported beautifully by Tilda Swinton as the more virtuosic part of an unhappy boatsman's wife. In a minor but sexed up role, Emilie Mortimer plays what is really McGregor's equal, and you come to see that he is an interloper on the boats, at first misplaced but increasingly absorbed by its shiftless lifestyle.
The back and forth storytelling (lots of flashbacks in different durations), the subtle but effective score by David Byrne (of Talking Heads fame), and most of all the understated, smart direction by little known David Mackenzie make this unique and quite strong. It stumbles a little in the courtroom scenes, which are a little unlikely and stiff, and overall in making a sensational plot have subtleties beyond the acting itself. The events are filled with certain expected twists, or with unexpected ones that are a little plain to see in retrospect, without complications beyond the big one, which you will see.
But this is nitpicking a surprisingly good little film. Let it settle in, without distraction, and watch the players play.