Here Are the Young Men

Taylor-Joy, Miami born doing a good Irish accent, plays older-for-younger and is the "smartest person in the room" in this otherwise familiar tale of young male self-destruction. You don't need a movie for that. Just walk to the local grocery store.

A film that feels like it wants to be complex but which is too often reduced to a simple experience by the use of over-familiar scenes, devices and plot lines. Some strong acting helps and the film is saved by swerving away from the expected laddish conclusions into a more satisfying study of the nature and perils of machismo. This, along with Anya Taylor-Joy's performance, allow the viewer to walk away feeling like they have watched a more solid and serious film , but only just.

The people reviewing this with bad reviews clearly missed the point. This is a movie based on the book by Rob Doyle. The book was fantastic and portrays the dark side of early adulthood well. It explores themes such as mental illness in a way that is brutally honest. The movie had to cut out some of that and obviously had to find a way to adapt Kearney's hallucinations. Eoin Macken did a great job making a great book into a movie, especially given the resources and the budget he had to work with. This movie had the potential to be better than it was, but it certainly wasn't horrible. If you're just watching for Anya Taylor-Joy, you won't like the movie. She was a part of this project long before she became famous for her roles in Queen's Gambit or Emma. She certainly isn't the only good part of this film. I highly recommend you read the book, as the movie becomes much more comprehensible once you have.

I can't help but think that after Emma and Queens Gambit that Anya Taylor-Joy could get better roles than this. I should say that I absolutely adore this woman, she is beautiful and and made good choices as far as acting roles go BUT this movie just stinks. The storyline is sometimes dumb, (I wont add any spoilers) and as much as I love watching Anya this is not her best work, for example her Irish accent seems to come and go between Irish and American English. Hopefully she will continue to hone her craft and get better offers going forward.

Here Are the Young Men is a movie that starts in a janky way and stays that way for the next 90 minutes. The performance of the actors seems to get blend with the act but doesn't have that much of an impact. Right from the first arc till the last the elements of the movie are quite janky and most of the time it makes you wanna skip scenes. The direction and screenplay both needed more polish. In the end, it's a movie that's not for recommending someone cause you will forget it after watching it once. When it comes to time pass this movie definitely falls into that club.