Youth Without Youth

R

Released Dec 14, 2007

2h 5m

Romance

Mystery & Thriller

List

33%

107 Reviews

Tomatometer

44%

10,000+ Ratings

Audience Score

In Romania in the late 1930s, Dominic (Tim Roth) is an old man who has sacrificed everything -- including the love of his life, Laura (Alexandra Maria Lara) -- in his study of the origin of language. He is planning his suicide when a bolt of lightning reduces his age and magnifies his brain power. Dominic is sent to Switzerland to elude the Nazis. There, years later, he meets a woman who looks like Laura. Through her he goes on a surreal, metaphysical exploration of language, life and reality.

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Critics Consensus

Although visually appealing, Coppola's latest film mixes too many genres with a very confusing plot.

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Sam F

The only explanation I see for this horrific attempt to bring mysticism to the 21st century is that some people don't get wiser, and instead get religion with age. Also, writing, financing and directing your own movie is a recipe for disaster if you have lost the discipline and force a dictatorship on the set, with no criticism around to prevent your excesses. Ganz acts with his usual grace and Lara makes the most of her international chance, but it's the very ideas behind the film that deserve to be buried in the millennial caves it comes from.

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

04/24/24

Full Review

helder f

Great (individual) scenes, photography, acting and dialogues that make any criticism feel almost like an offense. But, as a whole, it's a rather convoluted and tortuous storyline with frankly several unneeded parts. How many references to the war? How many different languages? How many different accents? How many different recordings? How many different locations? How many conflicts? Again each fragment is beautiful, but wow! A bit too much happening in this movie that doesn't blend very well. Maybe better editing would render this a more interesting movie

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

02/11/24

Full Review

Alec B

I'll concede that at times the narrative is frustrating, but that doesn't mean this movie deserved the excessively nasty criticism it received. Coppola is playing around with so many genres here that I found myself drawn into the dense plot, hell even the seemingly unconvincing romance pays off in unexpected ways.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

01/05/24

Full Review

s r

Another lost rating. Ugh… Main points were that Coppola was very ambitious in making this and it was a very complicated film. I turned on his commentary part way through and that made a big difference to help me understand what he was going for, because it wasn't clear. It is a beautiful film and was well made. It was an STG DVD.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Oh my god. Coppola tries to out Kubrick Kubrick: cinematography, lighting, shots, angles—except they were all pretentious cliches that had zero to do with the story. The dialogue is laughable, the situations are ridiculous, and the various time/location "plot" sections appear to be either Coppola wanting to use some Nazi costumes in threatening circumstances (that had nothing to do with the film)... or Francis wanting to hang out in some exotic locales that seemed chosen, not for the story line, but for their scenery and the quality of local hotels. Ugh. And the plot, omg, Coppola probably read some upanishads, listened to George Harrison songs, and got interested in the origins of language. And the "romance" was as emotionally appealing as watching two mannequins speaking in tongues. It was as if the two stars made love looking at cue cards. Mind you, I love difficult, intelligent art films, but this was one long jerk off on celluloid by a master who's lost his mojo. These egotistic auteurs need someone to say "really, dude, a swastika on a garter?"—"come on man, an upside down shot?!" —-Or better yet "No, that doesn't work!" I was actually saddened to watch this high budget student film from one of America's legends. It was pathetic and he should be embarrassed: it was that bad.

Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars

01/31/23

Full Review

Audience Member

You have the feeling it changes the "rabbit to chase" every half an hour but, at the end, you did not have a bad time but did not learn anything at all.

Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars

01/25/23

Full Review

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Francis Ford Coppola

Director

Tim Roth

Dominic

Alexandra Maria Lara

Veronica

Bruno Ganz

Prof. Stanciulescu

André Hennicke

Dr. Josef Rudolf

Marcel Iures

Prof. Giuseppe Tucci

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Ty Burr

Boston Globe

Youth Without Youth is pretentious as hell but so goofily in love with the idea of itself that you feel protective toward it, the way you would toward a platypus that has lost its way.

Rated: 2/4

Nov 24, 2011

Full Review

Ben Kenigsberg

Time Out

Rated: 2/5

Nov 17, 2011

Full Review

Ruth Hessey

MovieTime, ABC Radio National

Youth Without Youth smacks of vanity project from the first poetic moments to the last, and whose vanity lays a stronger claim to the big screen than Francis Ford Coppola's?

Nov 21, 2008

Full Review

B.L. Panther

The Spool

A highly reflexive and thought-provoking cinematic style by a master film historian that changes the way the film feels throughout.

Apr 28, 2021

Full Review

Mike Massie

Gone With The Twins

Continually bogged down by monotonous dialogue and is overwrought by incoherent visuals and a convoluted storyline.

Rated: 2/10

Nov 28, 2020

Full Review

Troy Patterson

Spin

The first half of Youth has the tension of a crack thriller. But director Francis Ford Coppola has rigged things so that the suspense story melts into a New Age puddle.

Rated: 3.5/4

Oct 25, 2019

Full Review

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Synopsis

In Romania in the late 1930s, Dominic (Tim Roth) is an old man who has sacrificed everything -- including the love of his life, Laura (Alexandra Maria Lara) -- in his study of the origin of language. He is planning his suicide when a bolt of lightning reduces his age and magnifies his brain power. Dominic is sent to Switzerland to elude the Nazis. There, years later, he meets a woman who looks like Laura. Through her he goes on a surreal, metaphysical exploration of language, life and reality.

Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Producer: Anahid Nazarian, Fred Roos
Screenwriter: Francis Ford Coppola
Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics
Production Co: American Zoetrope
Rating: R (Some Sexuality|Nudity|A Brief Disturbing Image)
Genre: Romance, Mystery & Thriller
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Dec 14, 2007, Limited
Release Date (Streaming): Jan 28, 2015
Box Office (Gross USA): $239.5K
Runtime: 2h 5m

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