A love story wrap in a mystery. Set in Europe before WWII, a nervous professor is changed by a cataclysmic event and explores the mysteries of life.
Youth Without Youth - View Trailer Source: Sony Pictures Classics
Friday marks the return of Francis Ford Coppola in the director's chair, as Sony Pictures Classics releases his new drama, Youth Without Youth, starring Tim Roth, Alexandra Maria Lara, Bruno Ganz and André Hennicke. Roth plays Dominic Matei, a professor whose life changes after a cataclysmic incident during the dark years prior to World War II.
Long stuck on completing his unrealized “Megalopolis” project, Coppola found Romanian philosopher/author Mircea Eliade’s novella about the limitations of time a compensating balm for his own frustrations. Perhaps Eliade’s investigations into Jungian theory and a nascent form of New Age spirituality also appealed, not to mention the excitement of getting back to the kind of artistic control only possible with low-budget filmmaking. Decamping to Romania (with a small section shot in Bulgaria), Coppola used mostly young local talent and had the Balkan nations stand in for Switzerland, Malta and even India. Unfortunately, the results are as phony as the back projection and lack the kind of Eastern European magical realism that would have made it resonate.
On the eve of WWII, brilliant Professor Dominic Matei (Tim Roth) despairs at ever finishing his life’s work, a study of the foundation of languages. Still grieving for Laura (Alexandra Maria Lara), who broke off their engagement 40 years earlier, Dominic journeys from his home in northeastern Romania to Bucharest, where he’s struck by lightning right before a suicide attempt.
