Youth

Age is not necessarily a guarantee of wisdom. What it does provide is experience, which can become a map that helps guide other travellers on their journey, or a mosaic of sensations, recollections, thoughts and feelings that offer solace or induce melancholia. 

Paolo Sorrentino's film Youth explores how it feels to have the majority of your life behind you, juxtaposing the physical, psychological and emotional effects of advanced years with a world that is reveling in rude health or grasping things for the first time.

It's not so much a story as a series of loosely-linked impressions about life, which may prove frustrating to some viewers (if the disgruntled response of at least one person attending my screening is any indication, that is).

The framework is a health spa in the Swiss Alps, where long-time friends Fred (Michael Caine), a renowned composer and conductor, and Mick (Harvey Keitel), an acclaimed filmmaker, are enjoying a summer sojourn, with their fellow guests including a couple who never say a word to each other, a beauty queen who should not be underestimated, a soccer star who has really let himself go and a movie star (nice work by Paul Dano) researching his next role.

Their interactions, sometimes cathartic, sometimes evocative, sometimes brief but full of meaning, make up the bulk of Youth, and Sorrentino — borrowing heavily from Fellini, it seems — is more concerned with conveying mood or eliciting emotional response than adhering to traditional narrative conventions.

That would make it a bit of a shambles if the filmmaker wasn't so adept at making precise and passionate use of the tools at hand, from the gorgeous use of music (and of silence) to the individual talents and traits of his actors. In the latter regard, there's some beautifully subtle work by Caine here.

Youth doesn't always work — its dialogue is sometimes clunky to the point of coming off like a parody of a European art movie. But it's often thoughtful and touching in ways that transcend words.