Young Adam Critic Reviews

The clammy power of Young Adam lies as much in the frank, emotional nakedness the actors bring to their roles under Mackenzie's care as in the baroque hopelessness of the plot.Read the full review

This is an almost Dostoyevskian study of a man brooding upon evil until it paralyzes him. Read the full review

All of the promise that was evident in Scottish helmer David Mackenzie's flawed freshman feature, "The Last Great Wilderness" (2002), is richly achieved in his second pic, Young Adam, a resonant, beautifully modulated relationships drama. Read the full review

This movie is so much the opposite of uplifting that you think Gary Oldman ought to be in it. But it's honestly made, and its second half does linger in the memory. Read the full review

Tilda Swinton's rich, compelling performance is reason enough to see this uneven picture, which devolves from a riveting romantic triangle to a morality tale without a moral center. Read the full review

Darkly effective, and its grip lasts longer than we might be entirely comfortable with. Read the full review

In this long, slow fall from grace, unceremonious nudity and half-hearted sex begin to look like a mockery of a paradise lost. Read the full review

Mackenzie has greatly tempered the story's brutality the old-fashioned way: He puts an appealing, sympathetic star at the center and surrounds him with beautiful visuals, with a darkly contrasting color palette of bruising black and blue. Read the full review

Unfolds with an absolute minimum of dramatic highs and lows, and it's so disaffected that it prompts laughter at the wrong moments. Read the full review