Youth
Directed by: Paolo Sorrentino
Written by: Paolo Sorrentino
Starring: Michael Caine, Harvey Keitel, Rachel Weisz, Paul Dano, Jane Fonda, Alex Macqueen
Drama - 118 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 6 Dec 2015
Written by: Paolo Sorrentino
Starring: Michael Caine, Harvey Keitel, Rachel Weisz, Paul Dano, Jane Fonda, Alex Macqueen
Drama - 118 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 6 Dec 2015
I can’t remember the last time I was so relaxed watching a movie. Youth takes place in a spa deep in the Swiss Alps and I think I was more at ease than any of the characters were. Paolo Sorrentino, directing in English for only the second time, brilliantly weaves in and out between a diverse group of characters and more importantly, he takes his time. There is room to breathe; to just sit back and people watch. Arty you say? Damn right. I believe I’m in the minority when I say I appreciate this film more than Sorrentino’s Oscar winner, The Great Beauty. Youth is more accessible, fresher, and down right a joy to let wash over you.
I read a fellow critic label Youth pretentious. When you hear some folks say Sorrentino wants to film the human soul, sure, it sounds like an experiment past art, borderline megalomania. Yet, I believe Sorrentino proves once again he can film art. His visual exposition and composition earned him raves for The Great Beauty. Michael Caine (Kingsman: The Secret Service) directs cows and their cowbells into an imagined symphony. Harvey Keitel (The Grand Budapest Hotel) sees a vision of his movies’ leading ladies reciting what must be their most famous lines. This is not pretension, it is calculated, planned art through cinema. Sorrentino does not pretend to have answers; he shows us questions and lets us follow a patchwork of characters attempt to the muddle their way through to their respective answers.
I read a fellow critic label Youth pretentious. When you hear some folks say Sorrentino wants to film the human soul, sure, it sounds like an experiment past art, borderline megalomania. Yet, I believe Sorrentino proves once again he can film art. His visual exposition and composition earned him raves for The Great Beauty. Michael Caine (Kingsman: The Secret Service) directs cows and their cowbells into an imagined symphony. Harvey Keitel (The Grand Budapest Hotel) sees a vision of his movies’ leading ladies reciting what must be their most famous lines. This is not pretension, it is calculated, planned art through cinema. Sorrentino does not pretend to have answers; he shows us questions and lets us follow a patchwork of characters attempt to the muddle their way through to their respective answers.
Keitel’s Mick Boyle takes advantage of the secluded spa’s serenity to work on his magnum opus, a film testament titled “Life’s Last Day”. Carting in a team of intellectual twenty somethings to spitball ideas with, the ad hoc crew lay in circles on the ground respectively brainstorming dialogue, plot points, and absorbing Mick’s tales of launching and working with the legendary actress Brenda Morel. Morel (Jane Fonda) pops up in a scene-stealing monologue and perhaps channels Sorrentino’s thoughts on television’s recent quality upgrade. Shattering Mick’s reverie and ambition, Brenda spears him with, “The future is television, so is the present.”
Mick and Brenda are not the only cinematic employees shaping their next projects hidden away in isolation. Famous actor Jimmy Tree (Paul Dano, 12 Years A Slave) puzzles out his next leading character with an extra dash of ennui as he spends the majority of his days and nights quietly observing the cast of characters fluttering around him. The character Jimmy fleshes out comes as a shock, but considering Sorrentino’s This Must Be the Place, the surprise character perhaps illuminates a Sorrentino obsession with this specific historical person. Dano’s Jimmy Tree bears more than a passing resemblance to Shia LaBeouf and I believe it is intentional. Tree wants to be known as a serious actor in existential roles, but he’s most famous for playing a robot where you don’t even see his face.
Back to Michael Caine, his character, Fred Ballinger, spends his days telling others he doesn’t do anything anymore because people consider him apathetic. A former world famous composer and conductor, he now must swat an annoying interloper in the guise of Queen Elizabeth’s gopher who begs the maestro to come out of retirement and play his famous songs again for Prince Philip’s birthday; a knighthood would certainly be in it for his troubles. Ballinger’s response is, “No. It’s Personal.”
And so it is. Ballinger’s daughter, Lena (Rachel Weisz, Oz the Great and Powerful), is at the spa too and in a fascinating scene while enveloped in a mud bath, she eviscerates her father for many of his past foibles. In any other film, Lena would get to pace back and forth covering some mileage and maybe throw a lamp. Here, she stares at the ceiling and only gets to alter her vocal tones; a truly unique way of reminding her father of all his mistakes. Later on, Fred and Mick discuss how children do not understand any of the troubles their parents go through. A vicious cycle.
Fred and Mick do not spend all of their time talking about the past nor even wishing they were young again. The true meaning behind the film’s title is far more cryptic than that and I have no satisfactory answer to give you. Parsing true meanings is too much mental effort for this film anyways. Sit back, sip a glass of wine, and just let it in. Pretentious? Who cares.
Fred and Mick do not spend all of their time talking about the past nor even wishing they were young again. The true meaning behind the film’s title is far more cryptic than that and I have no satisfactory answer to give you. Parsing true meanings is too much mental effort for this film anyways. Sit back, sip a glass of wine, and just let it in. Pretentious? Who cares.
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