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| Young Adam |
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  (5/10)
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Runtime: 93 m |
| Public Rating: 8.20 (5 votes) |
Director: David Mackenzie |
MPAA Rating:  |
| Genre: Character study |
Year: 2003 |
| Writer(s): David Mackenzie |
| Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics |
| Reviewed by: William Sternman |
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Years after their last meeting, Giacomo Casanova found these words scratched on a window of their former trysting place: "You will forget Henriette, too." As indeed he had.
In Young Adam, Joe, a Scots bargeman of indeterminate age, carries a hand mirror with this inscription: “Remember me when you look at yourself with undying love.”
Same difference.
Like his notorious predecessor, Joe is a sexual opportunist. He is always ready to have sex with any woman anywhere, even against a wall on a deserted street corner. He has sex again and again and again and again, with monotonous and mindless regularity. Each encounter is followed by a cigarette.
I have to admit that I was turned on by Joe’s various encounters, but, to my immense surprise, I left the movie feeling soiled and somewhat ashamed, the way I used to after I had masturbated as a boy. And as empty as Joe.
Because Joe is so emotionless and mechanical, Young Adam, like a porn flick, has no emotional center, nothing to get you through the lacunae between sex acts.
About two thirds of the way, however, the movie turns in on itself, doubling back (Memento-like) to give you new perspectives on already viewed events. I found myself temporally disoriented at times and not always sure whether what I was seeing was reality or fantasy. By that time, it was too little too late. Frankly, my dears, I didn’t give a damn.
Writer-director David Mackenzie ends his tale with the suggestion that Joe has found himself at last and is now ready to mend his ways. I didn’t believe it for a nanosecond. Neither would Henriette, I feel sure.
As played by Ewan McGregor, Joe looks like nine miles of bad road. (The patchy color and extreme close-ups don’t help.) Needless to say, his lack of affect doesn’t make for a very affecting performance.
His all-too-willing victims—especially Tilda Swinton and Emily Mortimer (named Cathie Dimly, for gawdsake!)—show more vitality, especially during sex, than Joe does. It brings to mind Lana Turner’s probably apocryphal quip about her affair with gangster Johnny Stompanato: “I wonder if the screwing I’m getting is worth the screwing I’m getting.”
I’ll pass on that one.
©William Sternman, May 24, 2004
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