Youth

No, Paolo. Once again, it is a cold terrarium full of strangely academized reptiles. And the orchestra just doesn't sound loud, only unglued, as if each section is playing a different song. I was a big fan of it, and after seeing The Great Beauty, I appreciate the greater relaxation of the tone in places and the tendency toward absurdity, but overall it feels similarly weighted and unconvincing. In addition, Sorrentino is increasingly successfully colonizing the hard-to-imagine territory between a folk comedy full of truth and snobbish "art", which in places becomes quite unbearable. Back to the small things, please. (10/07/2015)

First and foremost, it is a fantastic performance by the three actors in the main roles, although Rachel is slightly overshadowed by the two acting legends. It's as if Michael Caine is playing himself a little, with so much strength even in his eighties, and as if he has no health flaws at all. Both of them are capable of carrying the whole film with ease, and Sorrentino adds style and visual beauty to it. And yes, Switzerland plays a big part as well. (13/11/2015)

"What are you doing now?" - "They told me I was apathetic. So I do nothing." Michael Caine and Harvey Keitel excel in a pleasantly melancholic drama full of beautiful images and great music. I haven't seen anything by Paolo Sorrentino yet, so you can probably imagine how excited I was by the visuals. Extremely. The only thing I can and must criticize is the excessive length, because somewhere in the third third the film really started to put me to sleep. But that's all.___P.S. The scene with Michael Caine conducting a herd of cows immediately became one of my favorite scenes from all his films. (20/10/2015)

Sorrentino’s meditation is all the more pleasant for being formally modest. Set in a soothing, slowly flowing atmosphere of nature, recited by a wonderful acting lineup, Youth is a thread of life metaphors, some of which will delight by hitting the bull’s eye, while others ring of empty but playful intellectualism. I felt respect for the age-old wisdom of the two main characters, and I enjoyed my time with them. And the mature, wounded Rachel Weisz has her charms. (14/10/2015)

I wouldn’t say that, from a philosophical standpoint, the movie Youth is worse than The Great Beauty. But its great advantages are the locations in the Swiss Alps, where there is a hotel in one valley for retired Western world stars from any industry. In the movie, you meet the standard professions. A fat soccer player, a miserable actor who starred in a role that is constantly being talked about by the public, a director who has his head full of thoughts about how to make his masterpiece, Miss Universe, who is of course very beautiful, or a composer who is tired by the fact that he composed something unique. All of them are here willingly, like on a vacation, to get some rest. They are all talking here, thinking, philosophizing, and they can, but don’t have to, be joined by their loved ones. And the nicest thing about it is that this movie was done by probably the most interesting European director of the modern era – Paolo Sorrentino, who appears to have learned those spectacular scenes from Stanley Kubrick himself. I am not giving it a full score only because there were so many ideas that I wasn’t able to get it all in those two hours. Nevertheless, it is still an unbelievable, not only movie experience with a finale that is exactly the sort of thing that makes movies so unique. (08/11/2015)