[5]

Director David Mackenzie (Hell or High Water) adapts Alexander Trocchi’s novel about a Scottish drifter (Ewan McGregor) who falls in with a family living and working on a river barge, all while hiding what he knows about an alleged murder being publicized in the local papers. Mackenzie captures a suitably dreary tone for the movie, but it’s a challenging story to get into. McGregor’s character is seemingly emotionless. The climax of the movie is the possible emergence of empathy in his soul. Before that point, we’ve got only atmosphere and several sex scenes to carry us through. He has relationships with at least three different women in the story, and all three relationships are exclusively based on sex. There are no plot mechanics or genre conventions to hang your hat on here — it’s decidedly a character study. I just wish I cared for the character. Or any of the characters. With Tilda Swinton, Peter Mullan, and Emily Mortimer.