A pointless, arty, muddle of a film. The kind where a grim, bleak view of life is meant to be profound. The kind where endless gritty sex scenes are used to fake deep meaningfulness.

We start with Joe (Ewan McGregor) pulling a dead body from the river Clyde, on which he works as a bargeman (I think we’re talking the 1950s). Soon he’s shagging (no, there’s no nicities here) the boss’s wife and trying not to show just how interested he is in the murder trial resulting from the grim discovery.

I was a bit confused the first time we had a flash back, but along with the dull ‘present day’, we start to build up a picture of Joe’s past, and what’s brought him to where he is.

On the plus side, there is a vaguely interesting psychological study of a fairly ordinary bloke, but my god is slow going – I stopped after the first half hour, which turned out to be just where some story kicked in. The murder case adds a little excitement, but the endless sex just seems exploitational and quite frankly misogynistic. Full frontal nudity warning – although note to film makers: it’s not daring, it’s not clever, and it doesn’t make your film worth watching.

Avoid, unless you’re looking for a cure to whatever happy mood you may have woken up with.

Holy hell, I hated this mess of a movie. When I found it on Netflix, I thought it was a sure thing, what with Ewan McGregor and Tilda Swinton in the same cast. Nuh-nuh-nuh-nooo. I hope it’s the director’s fault. The film opens with McGregor and his boss pulling a dead woman out of a river and onto their barge. Over the course of the film, we learn that McGregor’s character knows more than he should about her death, and he begins a relationship with Swinton, his boss’s wife. Fine and good. The pacing was plodding-that I can accept. But McGregor’s character comes off by turns as a freaking sociopath and a would-be likable character. But the actor seems so confused by his character’s actions that he can’t commit to either monster or failed man. Throughout, McGregor’s character never seems to have a motive or soul or any reason to act as he does. Scott and I were baffled throughout the movie. My impression is that this director, David Mackenzie, is just a hateful misogynist-I don’t know what else to think. I don’t normally get that impression from films, but it really seems like he hates each and every woman in the film. I haven’t seen any of Mackenzie’s other work, but this hasn’t sent me searching for his next big project. He may just have unseated Connery as my long-standing Scottish Guy I Hate, which I thought was impossible.