Another early review, Youth Without Youth opens 12/14/2007.The film also ends the 10 year directing hiatus for Francis Ford Coppola. Tim Roth stars in this adaptation of Mircea Eliade's novel and genius editor/sound designer Walter Murch worked on this too.
I'm not going to lie, I didn't get this movie. It's a difficult movie to get through as the concepts of plot, narrative, time and character are completely done away with.
Basically, Tim Roth's character is an old man at the beginning who gets struck by lightening. He physically becomes younger, but his mind becomes filled with knowledge beyond his years. Also, his personality splits and Roth plays them all, sometimes all three of them are on screen simultaneously.
He falls in love with this woman played by Alexandra Maria Lara, who plays different characters. Or maybe it's supposed to be the same character. I'm not sure. The woman becomes older, but she also begins to speak in ancient languages all the way back to primitive sounds.
That's as much as I got from it. With my problems notwithstanding, the film doesn't deliver with tone or with writing. Both are incredible inconsistent to the point of frustration. The supporting actors are also spotty and ruin several scenes.
Coppola is one of my heroes, so this was a massive disappointment. The good news is that Murch and Coppola were awesome during the Q&A. Coppola talked alot about how it's nearly impossible for him to make a film in the US nowadays and a lot about the rehearsal and auditioning process. He seems to have a great big respect for youth and helping young people in the business. For example, the DP Mihai Malaimare is a 29 year old Romanian film school guy.
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