The opening moments of Young Adam take place in the murky depths of some body of water; we see things long forgotten, half buried in the mud, and then drift upwards, where the ripples of sunlight illuminate a figure floating near the surface, Sunset Boulevard style. It is a young woman, clad only in a slip and apparently recently dead. Then the camera breaks through to the surface, where it will remain, both literally and figuratively, for the remainder of the film.

On the surface, the young woman is fished from the water by Joe (Ewan McGregor) and the captain of the barge he works on, Les (Peter Mullan). They report their finding to the police, and later Les thrills to see himself mentioned in the newspaper report of the death. Foul play is suspect, but Joe believes otherwise; he offers a detailed supposition on how she ended up in the water, and in listening, its hard not to believe that he, in fact, knows otherwise.

Joe works on the barge with Les, shuttling coal and other goods down the river between Edinburgh and Glasgow. The time is the 50s or 60s (around when the beat novel on which the movie is based was published). Also on board is Les's wife, Ella (Tilda Swinton), and their young son. All four live together in the cramped living quarters of the vessel, their beds seperated only by sheets. Joe catches sight of Ella and Les trying to make love one night, and realizes that Les is impotent; he uses this to his advantage, and begins a rough, pleasureless affair with Ella.

It is noteworthy that this film is rated NC-17; it's sex is frequent, graphic and entirely unsexy -- the opposite end of the spectrum from The Dreamers'-- and I suppose it deserves its rating, although not so much for the scene the MPAA found the most objectionable (which show nothing, only suggests) as for the one which involves custard and condiments, and which may or may not be a rape scene; it's either funny or incredibly disturbing, because it's hard to tell whether the girl involved is laughing or sobbing.

I'm heartened to see that, so far this year, there have been three films given the NC-17 rating (the third is the yet-unreleased 'Haute Tension'), and that the ones I've seen have been very good. It shows courage on the part of the distributors, and perhaps the rating is on its way to becoming more common and more accepted. While I'm on the subject: it would also be nice to see more discrimination towards violent content and less towards sex; that the sight of a penis is enough to bring the censors running is somewhat ridiculous.

So yes, the sex is this film is gratuitous, but with a point; it is large part of what the film is about. We learn, in bits and pieces, that Joe is an amoral cad; he draws women to him, quietly, with a polite smile; and then discards them, operating on an instinct that is far below any sort of sensual lust, much less love. The women, in some cases, care for him; others seem to let him have his way with them matter-of-factly, as if its something that simply needs to be done. One of these women -- one of the ones who cares for him -- is Cathy (Emily Mortimer), a lovely lass who, we gradually realize, is also the woman floating in the river at the beginning.

We wonder if Joe killed her; we sort of hope he hasn't, although it doesn't seem to be something that would be completely out of his character. Later, we find out exactly what happened. There are flashbacks that fill in holes for us, although the movie is so quiet and unobtrusive in its style that its a little while before we realize that the story is not completely sequential.

An innocent, married man is arrested and put on trial for Cathy's murder. Joe finds himself strangely drawn towards the trial; can it be that he does have some moral core, after all, and that he'll try to right this wrong? The movie never gives audiences an answer, or even a cathartic moment for his character, something that could lead us to believe he'll change; if he feels regret when the innocent man's sentence is declared, it's up to us to find it in his eyes. We get plenty of chances to look: director David MacKenzie, who also adapted the novel by beat writer Alexander Trocchi, is in no hurry to get the film to its conclusion.

It's a frustrating experience on many levels. Films like this, or Lynn Ramsay's Morvern Callar, another Scottish drama about an enigmatic character dealign with death, are not meant to be satisfying in the traditional sense; they offer connective points, no insight into ourselves, do not tell entertaining stories, are not fraught with tragedy or melodrama; they leave us to our own conclusions, conclusions we must make on such scant evidence that it may not even seem worthwhile.

But I found that the film hung about my head; the droning menace of David Byrne's score and the icy, impenetrable glaze of MacGregor's eyes remained with me, and I pondered what the film meant. I thought about the title, which signifies some metaphoric connection to mankind before the Fall. Is Cathy's death equivocal to Eve's bite of the apple? Does it leave Joe with a newfound sense of shame? I'm reminded of what David Lynch said about mysteries in cinema, and how the best ones are those left unsolved. Whether it sticks in your mind or in your craw is up to you; the point is that it does stick.