Youth

Paolo Sorrentino's third film Youth ruminates on the qualities of a long life lived, much like his last film The Great Beauty. In fact, you could say that this film is just a straight remake for an English language audience. Despite this, Sorrentino uses a new cast of actors in a new location deftly enough to make an extremely memorable film.

Retired composer Fred Ballinger (Michael Caine) is taking a vacation in the Swiss Alps with his old friend and director Mick Boyle (Harvey Keitel), who is there with a team of writers trying to work on his next film. Also staying at the hotel is young actor Jimmy Tree (Paul Dano) who is getting ready for his next role and famous former football star the South American (Roy Serrano), a thinly veiled allusion to Diego Maradona. During his vacation, Fred is forced to reflect on his life, fame and regret over not being a good father to his daughter Lena (Rachel Weisz).

Once again, Sorrentino is able to create characters who have a lot of depth that don't leave me wanting to know more. It could be anyone from Fred to the masseuse (Luna Zimic Mijovic) and I have all I need about them, sometimes through as little exposition as possible. What he does like to do though is have heavy monologue and dialogue scenes that come out of nowhere. The fantastic dialogues between Fred and Queen Elizabeth's emissary (Alex Macqueen) and a show stopping sequence between Mick and actress Brenda Morel (Jane Fonda) are amazingly indulgent, but it is an emotional monologue from Rachel Weisz early in the film that caught my attention and reaffirmed for me why she is such a superb actor.

Sorrentino's regular cinematographer Luca Bigazzi returns for a third time and does just a spectacular job making the film beautiful. Where The Great Beauty used the streetscapes of Rome as it setting, the breathtaking vistas of the Swiss Alps are the focus and Bigazzi does an amazing job at showing off these views. Another thing I love about Sorrentino's films are the cutaways he uses between sequences. This time they focused largely on the nightly entertainment for the guests, the bizarre habits of some of the residents and even the scratchy violin practice of a young boy.

Ultimately though, this film is a pretty solid reimagining of The Great Beauty, but made more accessible for an English-speaking audience. This isn't a bad thing however, although I have a feeling a lot of people might see this film and think it is a mash-up of The Grand Budapest Hotel and The Lobster.

The Great Beauty

Much like The Wolf of Wall Street, The Great Beauty focuses on excess. But rather than have a blow-by-blow account of one's excessive lifestyle, the film chooses to reflect on such a life.

Jep Gambadella (Toni Servillo) is a socialite who lives off the fame and fortune brought to him by his early success as a writer in his plush Roman apartment. He spends most of his nghts either attending luxurious parties or dining with his friends.

Paolo Sorrentino has crafted a film that is excellent in its ambiguity. There are questions and emotions that are raised by Jep that are left open ended for the audience to interpret and contemplate in their own time. Most of these questions have to do with relationships, spirituality and the overall meaning of life.

Toni Servillo is fantastic as Jep, a character who is funny and also contradictory, such as when he tells another character the rules for how to behave at a funeral and then immediately breaks said rules in front of that character. Servillo displays the sadness behind the hedonistic Jep with grace.

The cinematography is also a marvel. The film shows the beauty of Rome (indeed it is a great beauty) with such vibrance and the hedonistic parties are shot with amazing dazzling colours and angles that really capture the drunken lifestyles that are had by the revellers. It had such a great affect on me, that I now wish to attend such a party.

Verdict: A beautiful film that searches for the meaning of life in the high life of contemporary Rome.