A young drifter working on a river barge disrupts his employers' lives while hiding the fact that he knows more about a dead woman found in the river than he admits.
Acting
McGregor weaponizes charm into something genuinely sinister.
Cinematography
Glasgow's canals never looked more beautifully bleak.
Direction
Mackenzie makes intimacy feel claustrophobic and dangerous.
Director
David Mackenzie
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The film was shot in just five weeks on actual barges in Glasgow, with McGregor doing his own swimming in freezing canal water.
Based on Alexander Trocchi's 1954 'Beat' novel, it's been read as both misogynist and as a critique of working-class male entitlement — the film refuses to choose.
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