museumofdave Review of Youth Without Youth

Youth Without Youth (2007)

What Do You Look For In A Film? This Is Not Easy Entertainment

[7/10 · 5 March 2013]

I would rather be enticed by a fascinating failure than a wholly successful mediocrity, rather see an Orson Welles than doesn't quite work than sit through a predictable romance with a pretty ending; everyone has something they want from a film--comfort, entertainment, escape, and sometimes stimulation--a film that takes you places you ordinarily wouldn't go--sometimes physically--like Malta, in this film--or a human mind unchained from reason, free-flowing through the centuries. Coppola's brilliantly colored time-travel tale is not always clear and is often frustrating for many reasons, but it is impressive craft, and shows a master filmmaker attempting something beyond the ordinary. This film is not easy entertainment, nor always satisfactory, but is often beautiful, is convincingly acted, especially by Tim Roth, and is worth watching twice--a couple of months apart, perhaps.