Chekhov's Mistress
Youth Without Youth Without Life
Consider this scene with Tim Roth, the formerly old man given back his youth (by way of a bolt of lightning!) only to continue down the same path of academic study he wanted to give up (through suicide) on his first chance at life: He stares dumbfound at a book and it glows before his barely surprised face, voiceover says ‘I only need to look at a book’s cover to gain its knowledge’ [paraphrased from memory]. So goes the implausibility and utter lack of character development in Francis Ford Coppola’s Youth Without Youth, which might very well be the worst movie I’ve seen since a few movies that made no pretense at being good or serious and might be the Ishtar of its time.
Coming from the man who brought Michael Corleone and Harry Caul to life, Youth Without Youth is a terrible disappointment. It’s full of obvious contrivances like glowing nazi insignias on women’s garter belts or the aforementioned glowing books, an unnecessarily convoluted story and plot, and lifeless caricatures.
There are lots of reviews out there (80, according to MRQE) so I won’t even bother to go into all that, just think of this as a public service announcement: don’t waste your time. It seems to me that Youth Without Youth should be a film about a filmmaker who tries to recapture his youth by forgetting everything he learned by making some of the greatest films ever made. He discovers there is, or there should be, no youth without youth.
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