'Young Adam'
In gloom

THERE ARE BETTER reasons than Ewan McGregor's weenus for seeing this adaptation of Alexander Trocchi's novel, but if you must know: it appears, tastefully but prominently in the foreground of a medium shot about midway, as he and Tilda Swinton lay abed with their feet toward us. Even at rest, it is very nice, as all rumors had previously suggested, and cut – but not from the film, as had been threatened. However, those looking for Dreamers-style exotica and soft-core thrills are barking up the wrong movie. This somber study of working-class Glaswegians during the glum 1950s does have sex, but it's of the furtive, deglammed, real-people-rutting type you might expect in an updated Angry Young Man flick. McGregor plays Joe, a young drifter who wanders into working on the coal barge operated by easygoing Les (Peter Mullan), owned by his wife, Ella (Tilda Swinton), and further occupied between school seasons by their only child, Jim (Jack McElhone). Though Joe isn't particularly gregarious, his presence relaxes an atmosphere rather clouded by marital strain – or at least Ella's soured attitude toward her spouse ("Shut yer damn mouf" is a typical endearment). Things have relaxed a little too much, however, when Ella and Joe commence jumping each other's bones, their passion overriding any hesitation that having a cheated-on husband 15 feet away above-deck ought to levy. Meanwhile, Joe is haunted by memories of his romance with Cathie (Emily Mortimer), part of the very different life he's recently abandoned – and a sequence of events whose end might well be connected to the drowned woman he and Les pull from the drink at the start. The excellent cast and adaptor-director David Mackenzie's deft approach – withdrawn yet intense – to an almost-too-internalized story make Young Adam a generally downbeat film that's nonetheless thoroughly satisfying. Odd note: the score (slightly Philip Glass-y, unobtrusive enough) is by David Byrne. See Movie Clock for show times. (Dennis Harvey)