DVD | Young Adam

I struggled with this movie. It’s so bleak and dark, and every second scene seems to have nudity or sex or both. The funny thing is it never felt like it was gratuitous nudity, rather another element in a sad spiralling life story.

The cinematography is wonderful, moody, well thought out, but still, because the movie is, so the scenery is too: bleak and dreary. You can probably guess at this stage that this doesn’t have ‘Hollywood Blockbuster’ or ‘edge of your seats thriller’ written all over it. In fact it moves at a deafeningly slow pace. But if nothing else, the acting is riveting, with Ewan McGregor translating the lead role with believable authenticity.

And I think that’s the point. And it’s the only point that I could grasp from this movie: life then was slow, bleak and depressing. So much so that our (anti) hero is so desperate for some life that he mistakes sex for fulfilment and wanders on a journey of regret from one women to another, not realising that he’s destroying himself and many others along the way.

A sobering look at the reality of sex without love.