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Youth Without Youth
Sony Pictures Classics


4.9

based on 29 reviews
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based on 16 votes
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FILM:

MPAA RATING: R for some sexuality, nudity and a brief disturbing image

Starring Tim Roth, Alexandra Maria Lara, Bruno Ganz, and André Hennicke

Dominic Matei is an aging professor of linguistics who finds his youth miraculously restored after surviving a cataclysmic event. Dominic's physical rejuvenation and apparent immortality is matched by a highly evolved intellect, which attracts the attention of Nazi scientists and forces him into exile. While on the run, he reunites with his lost love, Laura, and works to complete his research into the origins of human language. When his research threatens Laura's health, Dominic is forced to choose between his life's work and the great love of his life. (Sony Classics)

GENRE(S):	Romance \| Suspense/Thriller
WRITTEN BY:	Francis Ford Coppola
DIRECTED BY:	Francis Ford Coppola
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: May 13, 2008 Theatrical: December 14, 2007
RUNNING TIME:	124 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA / Germany / Italy / France / Romania
LANGUAGE(S):	English / Sanskrit / German / French / Italian

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

This film's playful visual language pulls you in rather than shuts you out; it isn't difficult to decipher, and it enables Coppola and his editor, Walter Murch, to navigate the story's many realms with a directness and dexterity that are refreshing.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

Half the time in the mystical saga Youth Without Youth, I had no idea what the movie was about, but I always felt that the director and screenwriter, Francis Ford Coppola, did, and that he was deeply in tune--and having a hell of a time--with the material.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

For all its fussy lighting, upside-down camera angles, and overwrought impressionism, Youth Without Youth is essentially playful. It's also pleasantly meandering in its largely faked locations, and drolly matter-of-fact about its mystic visions.

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

In this film Mr. Coppola blurs dreams and everyday life and suggests that through visual and narrative experimentation he has begun the search for new ways of making meaning, new holy places for him and for us. He may not have found them yet, but, then, he’s just waking up.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

Beautiful but empty.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

Tt is a comeback, and if it leads the director to better work, it can be forgiven as a warm-up.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

How's this for a ringing endorsement: Watching Youth Without Youth, Francis Ford Coppola's first film in nearly a decade, is like taking a philosophy exam. A really tiring philosophy exam, where the questions are elegantly phrased but damn confounding and not really conducive to right answers.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

Too much of the film is a muddle, and it feels like work, not play.

Premiere Glenn Kenny

As a fan and well-wisher of Coppola's, I wanted very much to like this movie, and I'll probably give it another shot once the DVD comes out. But, at first sight, Youth Without Youth's striving for exuberance reveals an almost desperate effort too much of the time.

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

Ultimately, Youth Without Youth is more intriguing than it is satisfying. It hooks you, then lets you flounder.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

In the context of Coppola's life and career, the film has a searching intelligence and ambition that can't be entirely dismissed; with his own money and nobody looking over his shoulder, Coppola has gone uprriver again in an effort to reinvent himself and cinema in the process. He ultimately fails, but he can't be faulted for trying.

USA Today Claudia Puig

An ambitious but mind-numbingly tedious and often incomprehensible film.

New York Post Kyle Smith

I understood two words of Youth Without Youth: "The End."

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Coppola's awkward screenplay never finds its tone -- or perhaps it deliberately evokes the pulp conventions of WWII adventures, horror films, weepy melodrama, psychological mysteries and superhero origin stories as a way of evoking the fundamental artificiality of the cinema. Either way, it never comes together into a cohesive whole, and is seriously undermined by Roth's morose performance.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Lush and heartfelt, but compelling only in fits and starts.

Slate Dana Stevens

A vast, lumbering white elephant of a movie--but I sort of love it.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

At its best, the movie's crazy in unexpected and poetic ways; at its worst, merely preposterous.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

I'm all for bold screwiness, but this provocation seems labored despite the striking images.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Unfortunately, "Youth" becomes so lost in its own conceptual, convoluted vortex, it becomes virtually incomprehensible. Coppola proves that even the best of our film artists can lose sight of what this medium is all about: entertaining, enlightening and including its audience.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

The essence of Youth Without Youth, which was shot -- luminously -- in Romania, lies in its solemn speculations about aging, time and consciousness. Mr. Coppola is one of the cinema's peerless masters, and I would have enjoyed nothing more than a chance to celebrate his new film. I'm truly sorry to say, then, that I found it impenetrable.

The Hollywood Reporter Ray Bennett

Lacking coherence and suspense, the picture is likely to attract a cult following while disappointing Coppola's fan base.

Variety Jay Weissberg

Attempting to harness multiple genres, pic is brought down by ponderous dialogue (much of it dubbed) and an inability to connect with its characters.

Empire Kim Newman

Not quite a complete write-off, but basically a folly.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

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.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

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.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

Coppola never manages to get his themes to coalesce into anything terribly coherent.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Most certainly a personal work -- so personal, in fact, that I can't imagine anyone but Coppola being able to sit through it.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

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.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

The movie is one soporific, depressed, deadeningly vague scene after another.

The average user rating for this movie is 4.9 (out of 10) based on 16 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Chad S. gave it a4:
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.

Rez G. gave it a10:
I think The Visual version of this novel which written by Caplavoro Di has done , I'm not a fan but I learned so many things from this Production .

Jay H. gave it a4:
Directors who can't edit their films to a reasonable length due to narcissism drive me crazy. Any movie, such as this one, that has painfully slow moving scenes needs to be edited and shortened. Other than that, the period detail is exquisite, fine costumes and cinematography. The story is fair, at best. As with so many of Coppola's films, there are flashes of brilliance, accompanied by too much pretension. Perhaps if he would get off his pedestal and actually watch one of his films...(The Godfather trilogy excluded..)

zeynep gave it an8:
It is a film which you cannot fully comprehend while watching it but for me it made sense after visiting the website and reading Coppola's comments on the symbols , the dual personality and the choice of love over knowledge. I believe Coppola has made a very universal theme complicated, artful, not so easily comprehended by just seeing the film. It made me think which i mostly like in movies.There's a very smooth story line and i loved the fact that veronica realized laura's wish of helping him finish his work of a lifetime but again he chose love over knowledge. With all his supernatural abilities which may lead to the realization of his dream, he chose love. That is a lesson itself.It is a very simple theme shot so artistically. Depressed it is but I don't believe it's vague.

Enrique gave it a9:
An essentially playful cinematic work of art. I noy totally convincing, it provides an unforgettable cinematographic/visual experience. If you want action, go see another flick.

Michael E. gave it a3:
Not without moments reminding us that Coppola is a great filmmaker, but "Youth Without Youth" is essentially a non-film.

Youth Without Youth Sony Pictures Classics

Youth Without Youth
Sony Pictures Classics