Youth Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.5

Youth Blu-ray Movie Review

9 1/2?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 7, 2016

It’s probably no big secret for regular readers of my reviews that I’m not overly impressed with a lot of songs that have received Academy Award nominations over the past few (several?) years, as evidenced by my citing in my The Happy Ending Blu-ray review that I felt the nominations for Best Song reached an apex they’ve never revisited in 1969 (and, yes, that does date me). But something that probably frustrates if not angers me just as much as the nominations themselves is the disrespect the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has routinely shown its nominees in this category over the past few years. As I also mentioned in my Rio 2 Blu-ray review, while fans of various musicians and/or songwriters may feel their favorites were “robbed” in any particular year (as I did vis a vis Sergio Mendes’ nomination for Rio, and as many others evidently did this year with regard to Lady Gaga), there’s been a curiously haphazard quality to not just nominations but to how the Academy chooses to feature nominated songs on the actual awards broadcast. In the case of Mendes and Rio, rather incredibly there were only two nominations for Best Song that year, and neither was featured on the Academy Awards broadcast. Something at least a bit similar happened with regard to the broadcast that just recently aired, when only three of the five nominees were deemed “worthy” to be part of the awards festivities. What’s up with that? Where’s the Music Branch of the Academy, or maybe even the American Federation of Musicians, when you really need them? Of course the Academy can do whatever it wants to, but card carrying members of the Film Score Geek Society (as I proudly am) may want to think about becoming more vocal (no pun intended) about this issue if it continues, especially when the omitted nominees are as captivating as Youth’s (sole) Academy Award nominated Simple Song #3, an operatically tinged piece which may have struck some on the broadcast team as too high falutin’ for the target demographic of the show to “get”. (And, yes, there were "snippets" of all five nominees offered as the actual award was announced, but you didn't see Sumi Joy, Simple Song #3's acclaimed vocalist, up there on stage belting out the complete song the same way you did Lady Gaga or eventual winner Sam Smith.)

The lack of “real” airtime for Simple Song #3 is perhaps even more of a bane to curmudgeonly musicians (ahem) than might typically be the case since Youth actually revolves in part around an aging composer named Fred Ballinger (Michael Caine). The film takes place at a tony resort which is curiously reminiscent of the “spa” that another artist named Guido Anselmi visited in a little film called 8½, and in fact there’s a certain Felliniesque quality to Youth wherein fantasy and reality intersect in some quasi-hallucinatory dream sequences. Also linking Youth to the iconic Fellini masterpiece is the fact that there’s an actual filmmaker at the resort, Fred’s longtime friend Mick Boyle (Harvey Keitel), a guy who, like Guido himself, is attempting to finish a film (or at least a screenplay) despite some pressing psychological turmoil.

Fred and Mick turn out to be in-laws when it’s revealed that Fred’s daughter Lena (Rachel Weisz) is married to Mick’s son Julian (Ed Stoppard), though the marriage is definitely on the rocks. Perhaps surprisingly that fact doesn’t really impact the well established dance between the two elderly men, both of whom are too wrapped up in their own issues to really pay attention to what’s happening with their kids. For Mick, that includes reconciling his filmography (and its reputation) with this proposed new piece he’s working on, while for Fred it’s a conundrum sparked by an offer from a toady of the Queen herself for Fred to conduct his most famous piece at a fête for Prince Philip which would also coincide with Fred being knighted. Fred is kind of unexpectedly resistant to the idea despite the honor being bestowed, a negative reaction which provides at least a hint of suspense in what is a rather static dramatic presentation at times.

Part of Fred’s almost oddly dismissive attitude seems to be a correlative to some angst felt by a younger visitor to the resort, an actor named Jimmy Tree (Paul Dano). Jimmy laments to Fred that despite having worked with the cream of the crop of both American and European directors, and evidently having a long and variegated body of work (despite his age), he’s best known for having played a robot in some box office blockbuster which has forever defined his career. Fred seems to share in the annoyance that one piece can pigeonhole an artist for all time, and for Fred it’s his composition Simple Songs, which is in fact the work the Queen wants Fred to come back to London to conduct at her gala.

Youth is extremely strong on mood and probably even more so on style, but it struggles at times to really develop any real dramatic momentum. Though the reason behind Fred’s reticence to perform Simple Songs is eventually detailed, getting there is a bit of a slog, albeit an incredibly scenic one courtesy of some stunning Swiss Alps scenery. The film works best as a series of vignettes (rather like 8 ½, actually), detailing a number of issues facing those whose best days may be behind them. Director Paolo Sorrentino seems to be hinting at profundities that may in fact never arrive, but he creates a really memorable “presence” with the resort setting, where a number of patently odd people (including some supposed real life personages) waft through, either in “reality” or fantasy. Performances are uniformly superb, especially Caine who reveals a rather fragile demeanor here which plays against type, at least somewhat. Keitel is typically brittle, Dano appealingly charming if under utilized, and Jane Fonda arrives late in the film for a glorified cameo as a pampered film star.

Youth Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Youth is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.38:1. Digitally shot with the Red Epic Dragon, Youth is quite often a visual stunner courtesy of the incredible scenery in the Swiss Alps locale of the resort. Director Paolo Sorrentino and DP Luca Bigazzi offer a sumptuous palette and lighting effects that often hint at effulgent glows surrounding the characters. Close-ups reveal the ravages of age on some of the leading players with some perhaps discomfiting fine detail. Occasional amber color grading informs some of the hotel scenes, but on the whole Youth features a refreshingly natural looking palette. Wide vistas when Fred and Mick venture out for walks offer substantial depth of field. There is one brief moment of near aliasing when an overweight visitor (one supposedly based on a real person) walks past a chain link fence which has a minor amount of shimmer, but otherwise this is a really sharp, beautiful looking transfer.

Youth Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Youth features a nicely detailed lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 mix which offers quite a few discretely placed ambient environmental effects in the "real life" segments, and some interesting if fanciful sound effects in some of the fantasy elements. The film is of course filled with music, and David Lang's enjoyable score fills the surround channels quite winningly, as do a few source cues. Dialogue is cleanly presented and well prioritized. The sound design here is subtle at times, but extremely effective in helping to build and sustain the film's unusual mood.

Youth Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Promotional Featurettes are a group of short EPKs featuring interviews, behind the scenes footage and the like, and include:

  Michael Caine (1080p; 3:43)

  Paolo Sorrentino (1080p; 4:11)

  Cast (1080p; 3:56)

  Music and Sound (1080p; 3:43)

  The Essence of Youth (1080p; 2:10)

• Gallery (1080p; 2:05) offers both Manual Advance and Auto Advance options. The timing is for the Auto Advance option.


• Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 2:27)

Youth Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

There's a somewhat similar quasi-magical realism at play here that was also in evidence in Birdman, and my hunch is Youth will engender the same bifurcated responses that the Alejandro González Iñárritu film did. Those coming to Youth expecting an all star extravaganza of some sort will probably be confounded by the film's meditative qualities, not to mention the patently odd fantasy elements. Those with an appreciation for Fellini may have an "in" here, since it seems probable to me that Sorrentino was meditating himself on 8 ½ when he made Youth. Technical merits are first rate, and Youth comes Recommended.