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Grimier and grittier than bathing in an open cesspit, this heroin-ain't-chic story certainly makes for gruelling viewing. Looking like anti-drug poster boys writ large, Adam and Paul trawl Dublin's grim streets with ever-increasing desperation, craving that one perfect fix. And, as helmer Lenny Abrahamson's debut shows in eyeball-pinching detail, they don't care how - or where - they get it.
As if they're characters from a whacked-out Samuel Beckett play, we never find out who's Adam and who's Paul as they hang about waiting for a contact called "Whatsisname". Their isolation and alienation is never in doubt - but the drifting narrative and unanswered questions slice a furrow we dearly don't want to follow, while the lack of humanity leaves the viewer unmoved. And if the odd flash of beauty (waves roaring on to a tide-swept beach; Dublin's pulsing neon nightlife) briefly cheers the heart, in the main, only masochists need apply.
