RECOMMENDED A lot of Coppola Rubicon has gone down the river to make “Youth Without Youth,” a dense, personal, obstinate, thoughtful, gleamingly crafted adaptation of a novella by Romanian-born writer Mircea Eliade. I would not call it bad, but I would not call it easy: there are layers and layers that resist ready interpretation, but there are myriad pleasures in all its surfaces. In the 1930s, Tim Roth plays a 70-year-old professor who, struck by lightning, becomes progressively younger. Static, stately shots are the style here, and they’re beautiful. The storytelling… I enjoyed but don’t think I got at all. This is the sort of magical realism that will become widely known only by some sort of unlikely magic or fortune. I like “The Outsiders” and “Rumble Fish” a lot, but it’s nice that Coppola is spending his millions rustling around in other forms of adaptation. The next five or ten movies that the 68-year-old Coppola is going to make are going to be pretty goddamn awesome. With Bruno Ganz, Alexandra Maria Lara, Alexandra Pirici. 124m. Anamorphic widescreen. (Ray Pride)
Related Stories
Heart: A Review of Soul The real world is soulful, too, in Pixar's bountiful life of the mind.
Seeing The Elephant: A Review Of Babylon The boisterous, brawling yet melancholy "Babylon," is a variation on film history, but more drawing for drama. It's gaudy and mean, celebratory and sorrowful.
Uncanny Ally: A Review Of M3GAN "M3GAN" sells itself in its first handful of seconds in how it introduces the handiwork of roboticist Gemma (Allison Williams, "Get Out") and her present product, PurrPetual Petz from Funki.
