★★★★
On the odd occasion, you come across a film that seems like it may, in fact, be genuinely masterful, but there’s a nagging sense that maybe, just maybe, the film doesn’t floor you because it wasn’t made for you.
That’s the lingering sense that Youth leaves, a film in which the craft is undeniable but the focal points for the story limit the target market.
Retired composer Fred Ballinger (Michael Caine) and active filmmaker Mick Boyle (Harvey Keitel) make an annual habit of attending a luxury resort in the Swiss Alps to while away their remaining years. When Fred is asked to conduct his own composition for the Queen, it sparks a shift in his lonely existence that is mirrored in both Mick and the diverse array of guests to the hotel.
Italian maestro Paolo Sorrentino has accessed the finest actors of a generation for this exploration of memory, achievement and reflection. Alongside the deeply melancholic Caine and gently witty Keitel are brilliant performances from Paul Dano, Rachel Weisz and Jane Fonda, as well as Alex Macqueen reprising his hilarious, wince-inducing character from the BBC’s The Thick Of It.
It’s an odd film from a creative who is only 45. In an exquisite moment, Keitel uses a telescope to explain to a young actress that the young look to the future, so close you could touch it, while the old look to the past, so very far away. The sense of a wasted past, the focus on men and male relationships and the overwhelming wealth of everyone involved make the film seem very specifically built for peers of Caine and Keitel.
There’s considerable irony in the sense that a film meant to make you focus on the time you have left, and how you spend it, should have you repeatedly glancing at your watch. The two-hour runtime feels as speedy as the motorised wheelchairs that crawl around the hotel.
But buried within that stretch are moments of utter beauty – Caine’s conducting of the wilderness; the reveal of his motivations for refusing to perform; surprising reveals from both Dano’s struggling actor and Mădălina Diana Ghenea’s Miss Universe; and a number of hallucinatory dreams that offer a glimpse of Sorrentino’s considerable imagination.
Cameos from the soundtrack’s contributors delight; Mark Kozelek (AKA Sun Kil Moon) makes a number of appearances, an artist whose pensive gloominess best reflects the lasting impression of the film.
Youth is a love song to the hallowed past, and as Nick Cave once said, no good love song is without melancholy. Imperfect, but rewarding for those with the patience.
Youthopens in cinemas on Saturday December 26.
