Main Cast: Ewan McGregor, Tilda Swinton, Peter Mullan, Emily Mortimer, Jack McElhone
Release Year: 2003
Country: UK
Run Time: 98 minutes
MPAA Rating: NC17
Plot
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 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, All Movie Guide
Therese Bradley - Gwen; Ewan Stewart - Daniel Gordon; Stuart McQuarrie - Bill; Pauline Turner - Connie; Alan Cooke - Bob M'bussi; Rory McCann - Sam
Credit
Stuart Rose - Art Director, Gillian Berrie - Associate Producer, Peter Watson - Associate Producer, Stephan Mallmann - Associate Producer, Des Hamilton - Casting, Nick O'Hagan - Co-producer, Jim Reeve - Co-producer, Alexandra Stone - Co-producer, Jacqueline Durran - Costume Designer, Mike Elliott - First Assistant Director, David Mackenzie - Director, Colin Monie - Editor, Meg Speirs - Hair Styles, David Byrne - Composer (Music Score), Meg Speirs - Makeup, Laurence Dorman - Production Designer, Giles Nuttgens - Cinematographer, Jeremy Thomas - Producer, Colin Nicolson - Sound/Sound Designer, Tim Alban - Sound/Sound Designer, David Mackenzie - Screenwriter, Alexander Trocchi - Book Author
Young Adam is a 1957 novel by Alexander Trocchi about a young man working on the river barges of Glasgow. It tells the story of Joe, a young man working on the canals between Glasgow and Edinburgh who discovers a body of a young woman floating in the canal. The novel focuses on the relationship between Joe and his companions on the barge - a husband and wife - and it becomes clearer as the novel progresses that Joe is connected to the corpse. The infamous saying, I've shed my own skin and merged into the fog.
