Amazon.co.uk Review
David Mackenzie's Young Adam, based on Alexander Trocchi's existentialist novel, demonstrates that Ewan McGregor means what he says about using high-paying Hollywood roles to finance appearances in intelligent low-budget movies. As Joe, an aspiring 1950s writer whose alienated selfishness destroys everyone around him, he is quietly authoritative. Tilda Swinton and Emily Mortimer are hardly less good as the two women in his life, and Peter Mullen as Les, the older friend whom he betrays, is touching and macho in the same breath. Les's canal barge is as much of a character as any of the people--this is a film in which the characters' occupations matter. Similarly the 1950s period detail is stunning, as is the gloomy cinematography: the high relief shadows and occasional visual distortions give the film a real visual style of its own that works well with its literary subject matter.
On the DVD: Young Adam is presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen with Dolby 5.1 sound. Special features include an informative making-of featurette in which the cast members talk about their passionate commitment to the project, the theatrical trailer, an audio track of David Byrne's original score, and a sequence of Ewan McGregor narrative voice-overs that runs with stills on screen. --Roz Kaveney
Special Features
- Audio commentary with director David Mackenzie and Tilda Swinton
- Making of Young Adam
- David Byrne isolated music score
- Cast/crew biographies
- Ewan McGregor original passage narration
- Trailer
DVD Technical Information:
- Running Time: 98 mins
- Region Code: 2
- Aspect Ratio: 2.35 Anamorphic Wide Screen
- Language: English
- Subtitles: English, English for the hearing impaired
- Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1
Product Description
United Kingdom released, PAL/Region 2 DVD: LANGUAGES: English ( Dolby Digital 5.1 ), English ( Subtitles ), WIDESCREEN (2.35:1), SPECIAL FEATURES: Biographies, Commentary, Interactive Menu, Making Of, Scene Access, Trailer(s), SYNOPSIS: Ewan MacGregor plays Joe, a moody, literary young man in postwar Glasgow who works on a barge and seduces women as much out of boredom as out of lust. One day Joe and his boss, whose unhappy wife (Tilda Swinton) Joe has been sleeping with, fish a dead body out of the water, an event which precipitates something of a crisis in Joe's slack, selfish life. In a discontinuous series of flashbacks, we revisit his relationship with Cathie (Emily Mortimer), from the first flirtation on the beach to a fateful encounter on the docks. Based on a novel by Alex Trocchi, the film is all mood and attitude, a dated exercise in existentialist angry-young-man noir. It follows its literary source in assuming, rather than showing, that Joe's narcissism and indifference to other people offer deep insights into the human condition. SCREENED/AWARDED AT: British Independent Film Awards, European Film Awards, ...Young Adam ( Young Adam )
