Review of Youth (2015) by Mad M — 24 Oct 2015

Youth is Paolo Sorrentino's(The Great Beauty) newest film about old age and the philosophies of life. Now, before I go into my thoughts on the film, I would like to point out that I was highly anticipating this film. In fact, it has been on my list for most anticipated films of the year for the past few months. After seeing this film, I have mixed feelings. It's hard to put my feelings towards this film into words. It's a very complicated film that is flowing with several different emotions. Youth is laced with humor, tragedy, love, and loss. Let me start with this. Youth is the best looking film I have seen all year. It is shot to perfection. Paolo Sorrentino proves to be a masterful director. Michael Caine and Harvey Keitel are also on the top of their game. The utterly fantastic in this film, absolutely stunning. They both give complicated performances of two old men full of the philosophies of life. Rachel Weisz and Paul Dano are also very good in this film. Jane Fonda has a cameo performance in this film. In the short time that she was onscreen, she floored me. In fact, I feel that if she had had just a little bit more onscreen time, she would have been worthy of an Oscar nomination. This leads me to the flaws of Youth. The film fails to come full circle. It only meets the audience half way. When Youth ends, it doesn't feel finished. It felt like the writers spent to much time worrying about hidden messages and metaphors that they half assed the ending. I find this ironic because half of the film, Harvey Keitel is trying to come up for the perfect ending for his film. The final moments of the movie are beautiful, but left the audience feeling robbed. Some of Youth just felt random. In fact, now that I think about it, I can't really put my finger on the main focus of the film. It went from relationships to regrets to suicide. There was just to much shifting in the final ac of the film. But, for the first half, I was really enjoying myself.

Overall, Youth is a beautifully shot film with Oscar-Worthy performances. But fails to find itself in the final act.

Rating: B-.