YOUNG ADAM

Young Adam takes place on the waterways in and around Glasgow sometime after World War II. Fuel rationing is still in effect, and a grim weariness hangs in the air, as palpable as the dust and damp that are the main elements of the atmosphere. Joe, the hero – though at the time the voguish term antihero would have suited him better – is an angry young man, a young soul rebel, an outsider, an absolute beginner. Joe works on a barge and boards with the small, sad family who owns it – Les, Ella and their young son. One morning Joe and Les find a body floating in the River Clyde, a young woman dressed in only a thin slip, who has apparently drowned. Les treats the discovery as a welcome relief from daily tedium; he brags about it at the pub and is thrilled when he and Joe are mentioned by profession though not by name in the newspaper. Joe’s reaction is different. The dead woman reminds him of his former girlfriend, Cathie. She may indeed be Cathie. (A.O. Scott)