Purely Joyful Movie!

Fantastic!

Admirable film.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Interesting, with mountains of potential, but ultimately disappointing. The movie was set up to be something very profound, but then drifted and failed to make a point. Still has enough coherent good ideas to be half-decent, but things could have been a whole lot better. The plot is where this lives and dies, and it is pretty convoluted. Kind of reminds me of Benjamin Button meets Inception, if directed by David Lynch (not that it is, it is just weird enough to be a David Lynch movie). The complexity turns out to be its downfall, as you get the feeling the writer had nowhere to go eventually. The script is too clever for its own good.Director Francis Ford Coppola must bear much of the blame, as he wrote the screenplay (adapted from Mircea Eliade's book), as well as directed the movie. Direction is good, but is hampered by the plot.Tim Roth puts in a solid performance in the lead role. Lesser-known Alexandra Maria Lara is good, and very beautiful, as the love interest.

This was a wonderful movie. Before I watched Youth without Youth I knew before hand that it was little bit on Coppola's experimental side. I also was bit of skeptical on the rating here on IMDb. I was gladly surprised, it was way better than I expected to.First of all, like others have said here, it relays on philosophy quite a lot. Many don't like that but for me, it couldn't be better. The story revolves around linguist who is trying to discover the original protolanguage, but on the same time the power to do that is sucked from elsewhere. In the end the protagonist needs to select either his life work or love. In the meantime it handles the questions of language, the questions of life, the questions of epistemology. Is the knowledge the ultimate goal in life as it's often regarded in philosophy (love for wisdom as its translates from Greek)?But the movie handles a lot more than just that and it's amazing how it does it. It gives view for development of man. How differently one behaves in younger or older age. Tim Roth's acting was good on this part. While Dominic, the protagonist, became younger you could see the there still was the walking style of elder. The movie has a glimpse of schizophrenia in it when the double comes in to the play. That gives very interesting view on psychology. The psychology is reflected to philosophy by mirrors. Very modern indeed and some may think that little pretentious.A lot of these things can probably credited to the original novel by Mircea Eliade which I haven't read; the plot is just brilliant (on most parts).Problem is, however, that sometimes something just felt out of the place. In the beginning acting was absolutely horrible and the lighting effect, well... I had to cringe. The opening titles were beautifully done but the lighting, oh the lighting, it just burned my eyes and not by being realistic. I wonder how did Coppola even pass something like that to the movie. But I guess it was for to bring the nostalgic feel that came through many times through out the movie. Of course it was set on 1938 to 1960s but the movie also reminded about the old cinema. It gave some sort of meta-fiction to the movie but not too much that you would be distracted by it. The opening titles is a good example of that nostalgia. It was somewhat clichéd how the plot continued. The scene on the rocky beach for example, that was just stupid but on the other hand one could but that on the meta-fiction part.In the end the movie really makes you think and has very good cinematography. I would recommend Youth without Youth to all those who have even that little something on the artistic side.

This is the first movie that made me feel I should do something to warn unsuspecting victims. So... uhm... there must be something good in it if... after all, it did prompt me to action, right? Well... No, it's boring. Really, really, really boring. And stupid. The dialogues are stilted, all the scenes are forced, the development of the 'plot' is choppy and naïve (e.g., nazi officer demands: "We must take this man, Hitler is highly interested in him", doctor replies: "Uhm... no, I am a doctor and I say so, dudes"; nazi officer: "Grrr! I'll come back with a German doctor!"(?) Next, he and the rest of the German soldiers reluctantly leave the room, almost as confused as the audience). Or: a girl has an accident, survives and speaks nonsense and -out of nowhere- 234 scholars show up and take her to India, instead of going with the old post-traumatic stress hypothesis, they go with the "why, of course she must be channeling the thoughts and feelings of a dead girl from India!" theory. It is worth noting that a bunch of characters that seemed important or relevant to the plot die and are never mentioned again, their tragic deaths (no matter how close they were to the main characters) do not have any visible impact on anyone whatsoever. Characters are pulled into the screen and then kicked out to never be seen or heard again. They are all mere plot devices, they have no past, no family, friends, prior engagements, a job... anything. They are empty vessels waiting to be sucked in by the plot and shoved out of the screen when they have become useless. This movie doesn't even portray the shadow of anything human. Hell, the characters were stiff even if we find out they were terminators the whole time! Languages! After all the main character is a linguist, the movie must be language-aware, right? Wrong! Dominic Matei will speak English even when speaking to other Rumanians, while Matei still speaks Italian to Italians and German to Germans, English remains his choice when he has an interior monologue or a chat with an old friend. Let's not even go to the concepts, ideas or conflicts developed in the movie: the strongest attempt at developing an idea is: "Are you saying the end justifies the means?". Youth or old age are not even faintly explored or described. The rest is Coppola trying really hard to make some point (WWII happened sometime ago, Love or work?, languages: yes or no?), whichever it may have been it's certainly not worth watching this movie. In other words: compared with this film, any 'buy-now' ad clip is a masterpiece. Go enjoy something else, it won't be nearly as dull and poorly thought as Youth without youth is. Cheers.

I thought this movie was brilliant! It's not a straightforward flick but it does have a satisfying completeness about it, and I am shocked now I've just checked the IMDb score (6.3)! I can't pretend to write a review which sounds as though I went to movie school, but I do know that this was one of the best stories IMHO, ever committed to celluloid.The film is full of wonderful devices which make it in to a great introspective plot. There are scenes which make us question our own humanity and of what it means to be alive, what gives a man purpose and what do we fear.There's a guy who wrote a review in the 'Hated It' section who has a masters in Psychology, so I'm sat here wondering If I've just watched 'Animal Farm' and seen a film about talking animals. I'm not sure, but when you watch this one, think about life's big questions, and I'm sure you'll find it enjoyable!