Youth: flawed, lovely, odd | Cannes Review

It’s all go at an exclusive Swiss resort where an ageing composer-conductor (Michael Caine) debates whether or not to accept an offer to play for Queen Elizabeth II. His best friend (Harvey Keitel), a film-maker, works with a young team of screenwriters and awaits the arrival of his longtime lead actress (Jane Fonda).

The husband of the maestro’s daughter (Rachel Weisz) runs off with Paloma Faith. A young actor (Paul Dano) observes and smiles wryly from the sidelines. Miss Universe arrives. A portly Diego Maradona displays mad skills with a tennis ball. A Buddhist monk levitates.

A recurring gag sees Keitel and his screenwriters attempting to find a great last line for a film he feels will be his testament.

The same might be said of everything in Youth, where every exchange reaches for a bon mot and every shot goes for glory. It's all crescendo all of the time. One couldn't claim that the ravishingly beautiful new film from Paolo Sorrentino was short on incident or celebrity or humour. But the picture's grandiloquence does not make for coherence.

Too often, Youth feels like a blooper reel from Sorrentino's previous Felliniesque riff, The Great Beauty. And too often, we're watching scenes that cry out for longer treatment: a stand-off between Fonda and Keitel does not give either actor much room to actually act. Caine does marvellous work but even he is pushed to the sidelines to facilitate the film's overall busyness.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Youth prompted jeers and cheers in equal measure at Cannes. This flawed, lovely, odd film both displeases and delights.

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