Youth * * * * 1/2

In 2014 (before I started this blog) I considered The Great Beauty to be one of the best films I had seen that year. Now, nearly two years later I have seen the next film from the same director - Paolo Sorrentino- which I have to consider as being one of the best films I have seen in 2015.  He’s quite a talent is our Paolo.

If, like me, you enjoyed The Great Beauty, you will most likely enjoy this too. In a way it thematically similar.  Whereas the ageing protagonist in The Great Beauty could not find his next novel inside himself, in Youth the ageing composer Fred Ballinger (Michael Caine) does not wish to find himself obliged to conduct his most famous work one more time.

Whereas The Great Beauty confined itself to Rome, Youth confines itself to a smaller location: a hotel/sanitorium in the Swiss Alps.  A place so salubrious that only the wealthiest could even consider staying there.

Fred Ballinger is staying there along with his daughter/assistant played by Rachel Weis and his long-time friend, a film writer/director Mick Boyle played by Harvey Keitel.  He too has a problem of squeezing one last film out of himself and has brought along a troupe of actors to work-shop his dialogue.  The walks that Ballinger and Boyle take together are amusingly symbolic as they each talk about the day before and if their decaying  bodies could squeeze something out.

Like The Great Beauty, Youth is rich with fascinating incidental commentary and characters.  Most notably Jane Fonda as a burnt out actress with illusions of grandeur and Paul Dano as a young actor whose career has been hijacked by one popular role he played.  Seeking advice from Fred Ballinger he says “Be generous with me  - friends should be generous with each other with their thoughts”.

In Youth, director Paolo Sorrentino certainly practices what he preaches. Youth is a bounty of visual and mental stimulation. Oh, and it’s damn funny too!