Young Adam (film)
2003 film by David Mackenzie
Young Adam is a 2003 neo-noir erotic drama film written and directed by David Mackenzie and starring Ewan McGregor, Tilda Swinton, Peter Mullan, Ewan Stewart and Emily Mortimer. The film is based on the 1954 novel of the same name by Alexander Trocchi.
The film was released in the United Kingdom on 26 September 2003 by Warner Bros. Pictures.
Plot
In 1954 Scotland, shiftless young drifter Joe Taylor works on a coal barge which operates from Glasgow, on the River Clyde, along the Forth and Clyde and Union Canals to Edinburgh. He shares the cramped on-board living quarters with its owners and operators, husband and wife Les and Ella Gault, and their young son Jim.
One day, Joe and Les pull the body of a young woman, Cathy Dimly, naked except for a petticoat, from the water; they cover her and hand the body over to the authorities. After Cathy's body has been taken away by the police, Joe and Les sit on the barge discussing theories as to what happened to Cathy. In a flashback it is revealed that Joe has seen Les and Ella having problems in the bedroom, with Les' drinking making him unable to perform. Joe goes into explicit detail theorising what may have happened to Cathy, with Ella present.
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Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1121256. The first chronological checks are 2003 and 1954.
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This entry incorporates text from “Young Adam (film)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.