Youth Without Youth
Metascore
43 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 29 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 9 out of 29
  2. Mixed: 14 out of 29
  3. Negative: 6 out of 29
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  1. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    38
    The film is a sharp disappointment to those who have been waiting for 10 years since the master's last film. The best that can be hoped is that, having made a film, Coppola has the taste again, and will go on to make many more, nothing like this.
  2. Miami Herald
    Reviewed by: Rene Rodriguez
    25
    Most certainly a personal work -- so personal, in fact, that I can't imagine anyone but Coppola being able to sit through it.
  3. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marjorie Baumgarten
    30
    Coppola never manages to get his themes to coalesce into anything terribly coherent.
  4. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Owen Gleiberman
    0
    The movie is one soporific, depressed, deadeningly vague scene after another.
  5. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Stephanie Zacharek
    0
    It's merely nutty, a picture that appears to have been made by an individual who has fallen off the edge of reason. Watching it was misery.
  6. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Jack Mathews
    38
    Whatever it was in Romanian philosopher Mircea Eliade's novella Youth Without Youth that drew Francis Coppola out of a 10-year retirement to make a movie, the result is the year's most bizarre novelty item.

User Reviews

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User Score
6.0 out of 10

Mixed or average reviews- based on 24 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 6 out of 12
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 12
  3. Negative: 4 out of 12
  1. ZakiyaK
    10
    This is one of the most intriguing movie I have ever experienced. It was so immense and captivating. I was drawn into the storyline and felt each scene as unfold.. Professor Dominique's character was so immmensed and realistic. I loved this movie so much! Thank you Francis Coppola.> This was a masterpiece creation.… Full Review »
  2. ChadS.
    4
    Lightning strikes, and an old man becomes young again. A man who never ages is enough story for one film, but Dominic(Tim Roth), on top of being vampiric, also has conversations with a doppleganger. And then there's his baffling superpower; Dominic has the ability to read books with the wave of a single hand(English majors will read this as an inside joke). If "Youth Without Youth" had a studio mentality, it would be "The Fugitive" with gorgeous cinematography. But then, lightning strikes again, and the film veers into "Altered States" territory. That Dominic would encounter a woman whose lingering byproduct of the electrical jolt, gives him just the right empirical information to finish his life's work, is just too paradigmatic for comfort.… Full Review »
  3. Lopez17
    10
    What is life? Life is a dream that you can sometimes wake up from and then it is not, there is no dream there is nothing but life, how do you define what you are doing or how you are living by simple means? How do you define where you go, what you do, or whom you meet? What is life but a fleeting thing that begins one moment and then ends the next? However, out of death, there is life and out of life, there is death. There are no clear paths in life except for the ones that we make for ourselves, we try to comprehend the dire state of the situation that we are in, but we do not know the real troubles that this life holds for us. So I ask you if you had the chance to live your youth over again to do it all right to make better choices to change the unchangeable to undo the undoable to make your life something more than what it has turned out, would you?




    Francis Ford Coppola's "Youth Without Youth" is a deep, morbid, highly complex, enthralling and mind bending films I have ever seen Coppola has crafted a movie that not only works as a piece of experimental film making but as a piece of expressionism and deep rooted meaning about the true nature of life. How this film plays with the many different emotions is astounding. Throughout the film, there are many questions that Coppola presents for the audience to answer. One of those questions asked is what is there to life and why do us as humans make the choices we do. "Youth without Youth" is an ingenious mix of genres that blends the bleakness of the morals of humanity with the dark and morbid reality of the limitations of life. This film is a fascinating portrayal of how age can be the enemy of our greatest achievements while we may find ourselves loved by millions or have won some prestigious award that makes you famous in time, our accomplishments and the person who achieved them are all but forgotten. In the case of seventy year old, Dominic Matei (Tim Roth) life has seemed to pass him by as a young man he had all the time in the world but now that he has just turned seventy years old it seems like there is no time for anyone or anything. After a lightning bolt strikes the elderly professor, he somehow returned to the days of his youth and given a second chance to rediscover all that time has taken away from him, to rediscover himself, to rediscover love and to finish the work he started so long ago. This film's story and premise so convoluted and disjointed that to try to describe this film would be all but impossible. It is kind of like describing the plot of â    … Full Review »
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