Youth is well-acted, well-photographed bull. The story turns on two elderly men, one a retired composer (Michael Caine) and the other a veteran film director (Harvey Keitel), during their extended stay at a luxurious resort in the Alpine region of Switzerland. Also on hand are the composer's daughter-cum-assistant (Rachel Weisz), distraught after the end of a relationship, and a jaded actor (Paul Dano). Youth exhibits a distinctive eye for beauty verging on vulgarity (director Paolo Sorrentino's specialty), and there is luscious and hypnotic imagery to behold here—a masseuse dancing in slow motion, people resting in a sauna as if they know they are posing for a tableau, a pop band performing on a rotating stage—but the dialogue tends toward the tritely platitudinous and/or self-congratulatory. The film is so very aware it is European Art and not one of those "robot movies" the characters refer to with sighing disdain, and it wears its rarefied satisfaction poorly. The absurd, intoxicating, whimsical images distract from a wispy screenplay rather than complement or gird a nuanced one. A major compensatory attribute, however, is a sterling cast headlined by Caine, emanating authentic melancholy and sharing a genial chemistry with a game Keitel. Very fine, too, is Weisz, whose fiery monologue railing against her father's history of jet-set neglect—presented in an extended closeup—is a definite highlight. She is far more deserving of Academy Award consideration than Jane Fonda, who shows up for two-and-a-half-scenes as a self-proclaimed diva and dials the scenery-devouring camp to eleven; as is true of much of Youth, her turn registers as (mostly) empty spectacle.

C+

The Oscar buzz (for a nomination) around Jane Fonda is utterly ridiculous, IMO.