Review of Youth Without Youth (2007) by Ben B — 11 Oct 2008

Francis Ford Coppola and I clearly have very different ideas about meaning in movies. I have now seen three or four films by him and have been left feeling empty and confused by each one. Let me start off by saying, I am *not* a fan of The Godfather, parts one, two or three. If I worked I could admire the craft, but overall I couldn't see what it was saying or why it did why it did. Call me blind to good taste, but apparently it's a reaction that continues to be true for all Coppola movies. I next saw his short film "Life With Zoe" in the collection "New York Stories." Pleasant, but I had no idea what meaning it held. And now Youth Without Youth, whose complicated plot runs through several different possible themes before ending with a shot that made me think, "Wait... Now... wait... WHAT just happened?" I felt it lacked cohesiveness and, judging from the other comments here on Flixster, it's not just me not "getting" Coppola.

Several moments feel like they were deliberately wooden. A character falls to the ground, and it's as if she is a mechanical toy that just goes stiff and topples over. Dialogue sounds like it comes from a David Mamet play. Every time philosophizing is done, the whole film screeches to a halt as "deep points" are made, and then the film continues as if nothing has happened. It didn't bring me to a greater awareness of the movie, however, as it could have done - instead, it made the entire thing feel amateurish, done by a student who wants to make a "great film" in the style of the masters, and just ends up pushing together a lot of moments that could make a movie meaningful, and then releasing it, convinced it's going to go down in history as utter brilliance. Sorry, Francis. It doesn't look like anyone, including me, thinks this is the next Godfather.