Coming Soon To The US: Paolo Sorrentino’s ‘Youth’

Paolo Sorrentino’s English language film Youth stars Michael Caine, Harvey Keitel, Rachel Weisz, Paul Dano and Jane Fonda and it’s opening 12/4 in New York City (with other cities to follow through the month of December). Here’s why you can’t miss it:

Director Paolo Sorrentino is the master. He premiered this film at Cannes, as he did with This Must Be the Place in 2011, La Grande Bellezza in 2013, Il Divo in 2008, L’amico di famiglia in 2006, and Le conseguenze dell’amore in 2004. He won the Oscar for best foreign film for La Grande Bellezza, and the Nastro D’Argento for best director this year for Youth.

Jane Fonda won the Hollywood Film Award for her performance, one that is one of the most shocking of her career and one you WILL NOT want to miss.

Youth is absolutely gorgeous, but not just visually. The dialogue is sensual overload for a conversation lover like me, and you get lost in the richness of the soundtrack . I watched the film three times in a row and each time I heard something new, a word or phrase that made me stop and consider its meaning for me. “Desire…so pure, so impossible, so immoral; it doesn’t matter, because that’s what makes us alive.”

The story is about Jimmy, played by Paul Dano on vacation at a Swiss resort and preparing for an upcoming role. As he spends his lazy days in the crisp mountain air, and his evenings sipping cocktails in the moonlight, he’s doing what, I suppose, all good actors do; he’s observing the human behavior around him.

He watches two aging buddies, Mick, a director, played by Harvey Keitel, and Fred, a composer played by Michael Cane, on holiday together, and he befriends them, asking them to “be generous” and tell him about their lives. Both understand that their time on earth is limited, but they are handling their old age in different ways; Fred seems indifferent and lethargic, facing each day with a weary resignation. Mick, however, is working on his masterpiece, his “testament”, with a group of young screenwriters with the enthusiasm of a younger man. In an ironic twist, there’s a third rewrite of the script and everybody including the producers are happy, but the writers still can’t come up with a way to end the film, but Mick’s not worrying about it.