Zola-esque wallow in animal lust and criminal injustice, set in the place and period of the kitchen-sink movement, the late Fifties on a Scottish coal barge. (The amoral ladykilling hero is called Joe, like the one in Room at the Top, but without the upward mobility.) The actual source is a book by Alexander Trocchi, a Beat writer and a sometime pseudonymous pornographer. Zola, to be sure, never thought of having one of his biologically driven heroes pour ketchup, mustard, salt, etc., over his prostrate girlfriend before spanking and raping her. (The aspiring-writer hero might be speaking for the original novelist: "I'm trying to do something different, can't you understand? I'm trying to do something new.") And upstart director David Mackenzie treats us to an extreme closeup of a housefly on Tilda Swinton's nipple, as well as a passing glance at (what, again?) Ewan McGregor's unsheathed manhood. If this sounds like your cup of tea, be assured that it's brewed to full strength. Peter Mullan, Emily Mortimer. (2004) — Duncan Shepherd
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