Jeanskynebu the audience applauded

Lawbolisted Powerful

Spidersecu Don't Believe the Hype

Dotbankey A lot of fun.

alan-51-111974 Firstly the film is based on a book, we're not here to judge the book or its narrative.Let's start with the only thing I think is bad about this film... the "Brief Encounter" moments. I'm grasping at straws as to why such stylistic dissonance could have been seen as acceptable... except as a way to lighten the tone for American audiences. That's the only thing I can think of and those moments diminish the film. I don't know why he would do that, he's certainly in a position not to.I don't share many of the perspectives shared from the book through this film but I share enough to have greatly enjoyed it. The book, like the film is informed by Faust.I didn't mind the occasional upside downness... yes that word is not in the dictionary. I took it both as a metaphor for duality and a metaphor for childhood... when was the last time YOU stood on your head and looked at things upside-down?Tim Roth is truly great in this and that's a shame because the film could have been greater.It's still better than 90% of the movies I research and then watch though and none of my time was wasted.I'm hoping at some point someone will re-cut the soundtrack to the "Brief Encounter" moments (I know they are not all Rachmaninov but you see the style getting repeated later with different music). Maybe just remove the music altogether for those scenes.It's like sticking a "50% OFF!" sticker on a Mark Rothko.

cinnamon de mars i didn't see it all, and it was on a TV screen too, and it was late at night, and i was a little tired after another long days work, but for the first time in years i was transfixed and spellbound by cinema. as it should be. transfixed and spellbound. i forgot how tired i was, i forgot everything, i was so moved by it. first and foremost i saw a love film. and i would suggest i saw the director, as well, through this. a message from him and others about what is important in life, in the final analysis. if you ever read this, those involved in making this enthralling production, there is an old literary novel that, in my humble opinion, you have the sensitivity to portray...

Rodrigo Amaro 10 years without directing a movie and then Francis Ford Coppola returns with "Youth Without Youth". But it was a disappointing return considering that his daughter Sofia directed the brilliant "Lost in Translation" and his other son Roman directed the nostalgic film "CQ" (run to watch this film NOW). I don't know what happened to the talented director of movies like "The Godfather" trilogy and "The Conversation" but I know this: he tried hard, made a few good things but in the end the result was overshadowed by a messy and confusing plot where the dramatic suspense was more interesting than the romance told in the second half of it.The amazing Tim Roth plays an 70 year-old linguistic that after being struck by a lightning starts all of sudden to get younger and he has the chance to do all the things he wanted to do as younger including finishing a book (we never know what is the so-called work of his life). But this linguistic happens to be in Europe during the 2nd World War and the Nazis want him after discovering what happened to him, and they want to know what more thing he can do. Roth is helped by a medical doctor (Bruno Ganz) to escape to another countries, disguised and not only that: he has some incredible powers such as speak and write in all possible languages and mind-controlling (that appears in a scene where he makes a Nazi scientist shoot himself), and he talks to himself divided into another person (remember John Lithgow in "Raising Cain"? No? The bad twin and the good twin. Here Roth has an good side but he's able to talk to his "bad" ? negative side). Until this part where he's running away from all kinds of danger the movie works very well. Then...There's a boring and endless romance between the main character and a young woman (Alexandra Maria Lara), he knew that woman earlier in his life and now she returned also hit by a lightning and speaking in some dead Indian language. The mystery is good except for the excessive use of philosophical thoughts about life, death, experiences and other things. The romance was unconvincing, I didn't feel empathy for the actors at this point, and by the time they're old again (for no reasons at all or I blinked and missed something) the movie was ruined. I haven't read Mircea Eliade's novel and I don't know what was good about it to make it transformed into a feature film but I know this: The story had great potential but if it were filmed by David Lynch. It is an very surrealistic story something that Coppola is not used to do. But Coppola didn't ruined the movie, perhaps just a few parts of his screenplay that didn't match well. As a director he made a great technical film, with good art direction and a beautiful cinematography; but the screenplay could've been more easy to follow, less difficult to put the parts together and explain a few things. When Tim Roth manages to control the actions of the Nazi scientist who wanted to kill him the movie (or the book) could point to other direction and make of the main character a hero instead of a egoistic character that only wants to write his book and learn more and more about things. Performances were okay here, Roth was good; Bruno Ganz even better; and Alexandra Maria Lara was unmemorable, can't sure quite why; and there's a good special appearance by Matt Damon. In the end the title "Youth Without Youth" reflected that despite getting young (Youth) and have a chance to make different things doesn't necessarily means to be a greater person and/or to have a uncomplicated life. This thirsty for knowledge only made the character a lot older on his inside (Without Youth). In simple words: a movie with a similar theme is better when someone builds a time machine. When a lightning strikes you probably are going to be too much reflexive on things and end up doing nothing. 5/10

Roland E. Zwick In "Youth Without Youth," the protagonist, Dominic Matei, quite literally, gets a second lease on life. Dominic is a frail man of seventy when, on Easter morning in 1938, he is struck by lightning while crossing a street in Bucharest. But rather than dying or being forever disfigured, Dominic undergoes an amazing transformation as a result of his experience - sort of his own resurrection into eternal life: for he not only returns to the body he had when he was in his 30s (think of this as a kind of "17 Again" with substance), but he develops the mental acuity and telekinetic powers of a "superman" as well. This is quite a boon for an ambitious writer whose primary goal in life has been to survive long enough to complete a comprehensive and exhaustive work on human language and consciousness. Yet, as his mental faculties increase at an ever-accelerating rate, Dominic's life becomes a dizzying and eventually undifferentiated blur of reality and hallucinations, dreams and memories. Soon, the Nazis have made him an object of "study," determined to use him as a guinea pig in their efforts to create a "master race." But that's only half the story, which extends well into the late 1960s, with Dominic holding onto his eternal youth at virtually every step of the drama.Impeccably produced, written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola, "Youth Without Youth" is a fascinating mixture of war time drama, unrequited love story, psychological study, ancient and primordial mysticism and sci-fi fantasy. The screenplay, based on the story by Romanian writer Mircea Eliade, provides plenty of food for thought for those willing to dig into its deeper themes of time and the through-line of human history, and a feast for those who like a challenging story, solidly constructed and solidly told. The structure is admittedly episodic in nature, but it's only because the movie is utterly unafraid of veering off into intriguing and wholly unexpected paths when it feels the need to do so. This keeps the movie perpetually fresh and the audience thoroughly intrigued from first frame to last. It isn't important that the movie make perfect sense at, every moment; what's crucial is that we be willing to put ourselves in the hands of the filmmakers for the time it takes to tell their story - to go where they want to take us. And those places are fascinating.Tim Roth carries the film with his beautifully understated embodiment of a man trying desperately to understand his place in the world, and Alexandra Maria Lara is heartbreaking as the loving, troubled young woman with similar issues who briefly joins him on his journey.With its enigmatic storytelling and its refusal to spell everything out in simplistic terms for a spoon-fed audience, "Youth Without Youth" risks alienating a large segment of the ticket-buying public. But for all those with an appreciation for the novel and the unique, "Youth Without Youth" is an unheralded gem to be reveled in and savored.