Here Are the Young Men (2021)

Here Are the Young Men is the kind of bruising, ambitious coming-of-age drama that doesn’t just observe youthful recklessness—it stares it down until it reveals something uglier and uncomfortably true. Set in a gray, restless Dublin haze, it rides on raw, committed performances (Dean-Charles Chapman in particular) that make the characters’ bravado feel less like posturing and more like a warning flare. The film is gripping in the way a late-night confession is gripping: messy, intense, and hard to look away from as it follows the fallout of boredom, booze, and a social vacuum. It’s not for everyone—its darkness and transgressive edge can be punishing—but if you want a solid drama that swings big and lands with a genuinely brilliant final note, it’s worth the plunge.

Here Are the Young Men is clearly aiming for a grim, cautionary portrait of post-school emptiness in Dublin, where boredom, booze, and bravado curdle into something uglier. The problem is it often feels like a familiar “troubled lads spiral” stitched together from better films, with a loose, formless structure that mistakes bleakness for insight. Even with committed performances and moments that hit hard on a surface level, the emotional punch doesn’t really land because the characters and themes aren’t explored with much depth. If you’re looking for a focused, psychologically rich drama, this may test your patience, but if you can tolerate messy storytelling for a raw, abrasive mood piece, you might find something to latch onto.