'Young Adam' gets NC-17 rating

NEW YORK, March 20 (UPI) -- Citing extreme sexual content, New York's Motion Picture Association of America rejected an appeal of the NC-17 rating given to "Young Adam."

Specifically, the MPAA's ratings board raised an issue about two characters in an intense but fully clothed sex scene.

The Ewan McGregor-Tilda Swinton film is directed by David McKenzie and produced by Jeremy Thomas, who also had a recent bout with the MPAA over the Bernardo Bertolucci's sexually charged film "The Dreamers."

"We really think the ratings board has got to get with the program and get with the future," Tom Bernard, co-president of Sony Pictures Classics, said in a statement. "What's needed is a hard R rating to distinguish the quality films like 'Young Adam' and 'The Dreamers' from 'Debbie Does Dallas' or any other porn movie."

"Basically, what you're doing is giving signals to the audience and the MPAA is giving a negative signal right now," Bernard added. "The way it stands, how can an audience distinguish what's art from what's hardcore smut? Audiences avoid the picture because of this rating."

This is the second NC-17 film that Sony Pictures Classics has distributed, following the 1997 release of the foreign film "Broken English."