Cinema Review: Youth


Posted January 31, 2016 in Cinema Reviews

Youth

Director: Paolo Sorrentino

Talent: Michael Caine, Harvey Keitel, Rachel Weisz, Paul Dano

Release Date: 29th January 2016

 

Paolo Sorrentino’s appeal, beyond to those actively kept in a state of distracted sedation, remains a mystery. That is to say, plaudits due to the director have thus far not been in spite of the mildness of his filmmaking vision, but precisely because of it. Youth sees two elderly men, a composer and conductor (Caine), and a filmmaker (Keitel), reflect on their lives and friendships from places of creative apathy and reinvigoration, respectively, in the surroundings of an opulent Swiss chalet hotel. The sensibility of the middlebrow dictates that this is the sort of place where profundity ‘happens’, but a series of vignettes, conversations and musical interludes present only a kitsch simulacrum of what was intended. That the film’s central conflict is over whether Caine’s character will conduct an old composition of his in a special performance for the Queen and Prince Philip suggests the degree to which Sorrentino is dedicated to spoon-feeding the bourgeoisie their own shite. Noxiously sentimental and completely tedious.

Words: Oisín Murphy-Hall

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