Even though I've seen it twice and enjoyed every minute of it, don't press me on what the hell Youth is all about. The latest from Italian filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino once again has old people reflecting and ruminating on life and death in the most posh and photogenic of surroundings, as in his Oscar-winning work of genius The Great Beauty. But while both films have a loose, meandering pace, Youth is a more scattershot journey.
Sorrentino does have a lot of stars at his disposal this time around. First off, he has Michael Caine classing up the joint as always as Fred Ballinger, a retired composer trying to get his rest and relaxation on at a tony all-ages hotel/health spa in the Swiss Alps. Even though he's constantly getting badgered by an emissary for Queen Elizabeth II to come out of retirement and perform his classic "Simple Song #3" (supplied by Bang on a Can's David Lang), he isn't having it. He's content shuffling around on the hotel grounds, constantly rustling a wrapper between his fingers and hanging with longtime best friend and filmmaker Mick Boyle (Harvey Keitel). He's staying at the hotel too, writing the script for his latest film, to which he and his younger scribes can't seem to find a proper ending. The name of the film: Life's Last Day. (How's that for on-the-nose?)
But they aren't the only guests inhabiting this place. Ballinger's daughter Lena (Rachel Weisz) bunks with him when her husband dumps her for international pop star Paloma Faith (who actually shows up as herself). There's also movie star Jimmy Tree (Paul Dano, obviously playing Johnny Depp), who is fleshing out his latest role, a part that'll hopefully make people forget his star-making turn as a robot. (When he gets dolled up in this character halfway through, you may wonder if the dude is just trying to commit career suicide.) We also have a pot-bellied former soccer star, a Miss Universe who has no qualms walking around butt-bald-nekkid, and kids who appear to be wiser than the old folks.
If Beauty, to borrow a line from the movie Big Night, was a cry for people to bite their teeth into the ass of life while they still can, Youth seems like a study in geriatric ennui. The resort itself is essentially a snazzy purgatory, a respite for people before they shuffle off this mortal coil, complete with suggestive rubdowns from a barely legal masseuse, a house band that sings covers of Florence + the Machine tunes and a limping on-site prostitute.
Caine and Keitel make a fascinating, adorable pair of old buddies, as they spend most of the time recalling memories (or trying to), shooting the shit and asking each other if they urinated that day. Their characters' yin/yang perspectives on golden-years living — with Caine's composer practically ready to get the hell out of here, while Keitel's filmmaker still has enough creative juice in him to keep going — reflects the movie's conflicted tone. It's as if Sorrentino can't decide whether to preach celebrating life in all its glory or to cynically advise folks just to ride it out.
By the time Jane Fonda (virtually playing a profane, amusingly shrill caricature of herself) briefly appears as Boyle's actress muse, showing up only to shoot down his film and remind him that no one gives a shit about his pretentious pontificating, you get the sense that Sorrentino is calling bullshit on himself and his ambivalent point of view before anybody else does. That said, I still had a good time watching this. Sure, Youth largely consists of a bunch of people rambling around a resort doing nothing. But I can't think of a better bunch of people to ramble around and do nothing with.
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