What Really Lies Beneath

David MacKenzie's existentialist crime-noir, set in Glasgow in the 1950s, is a beautifully paced adaptation of the novel by beat-writer Alexander Trocchi.

Struggling writer Joe (Ewan McGregor) finds himself taking up work on a coal-barge, owned by hard-as-nails Ella (Tilda Swinton), her salt-of-the-earth husband Les (Peter Mullan) and their young son. Taking as a starting-point their fishing a woman's body out of the River Clyde, the film cuts back and forward between Joe's involvement with them on the barge and his life previous to this.

The opening image of a swan swimming, filmed at first from above, then from beneath the water's surface, acts as an early key into how the story is told, constantly breaking away from the visible everyday life, to scour the garbage littered riverbed for mementoes from Joe's life. Indeed, much of what he once possessed but now wants rid of ends up on the bottom of the Clyde.

Below the surface lurk not just memories though, and Young Adam plunges us into the sexually overwhelming urges of these frustrated people living in spent relationships. Escaping from the plodding drudgery of everyday existance, the various couplings are noisy, beastly affairs, an ocean away from the forced niceties of 1950s British social mores. And it's this rose coloured period that the movie finally lifts the blanket on, diving beneath the image of innocence of pre-sixties Britain, to reveal a world of flesh and bone.

With the film moving along at the pace of a coal-barge, large and heavy with seemingly no hurry to get anywhere fast, it allows the actors the time and space to conjure a contemplative piece, instead of merely focussing on telling the story. The resulting performances by the likes of McGregor, Swinton and the always glorious Mullan are some of the best of their careers.

And it's not only the actors who are allowed to take their time. The film is visually stunning, beautifully shot by Giles Nuttgens, and moves along gently on a lilting soundtrack by David Byrne.

If you want a film that provides easy answers to the questions it raises, this one is not for you. But if you enjoy being allowed to think for yourself, and you don't mind if their is little or no redemption to take home with you afterwards, you could do much worse than to hitch a ride on this cruise.

Young Adam is playing at Cinetwin 1 until June 24.
Click here for screening times.