Jun 11 2008
Youth Without Youth reviewed
Prior to production there was a lot of excitement surrounding Francis Ford Coppola’s return to directing. Youth Without Youth certainly has more intrigue and internal beauty than much of Coppola’s work since the eighties, and there is a certain amount of risk he seems willing to take here, which is not his usual methodology.
Tim Roth gives a characteristically dynamic performance. Dominic (Roth) is an academic studying the origins of language. He was at work from his twenties through his seventies on a book covering the entire spectrum of the history of verbal language when he gets struck by lightning. He mysteriously seems to regress into his thirties. He becomes a man wanted by the Nazi’s.
Part love story, part science fiction and the bulk of the film takes place in the framework of World War II, needless to say it’s got a lot of layers and creates a lot of complex motifs that intertwine in an interesting fashion. Unfortunately the film doesn’t actually come together in practice quite the same as it would seem in theory. The film is a garbled mess. The script is a little stiff and the underexploited phenomena of the film don’t really serve as a point of intrigue but rather feel like a contrivance that becomes a distracting plight upon the actual story of this man’s journey and his loss. The film actually would have been more interesting if it wasn’t so fantastical. Even the beautiful cinematography and interesting editing couldn’t create a decent level of intrigue in the ridiculous plot arc.
The potential of figure of Coppola’s stature finding a route to more independently minded ventures is enormous. The film had great potential, but Coppola looks like a novice director who wants to “experiment” without reason. The film feels as though he is trying to experiment for the sake of an experiment.
