"Human beings really know how to be pathetic when they
want to be," is one of the first lines we hear from Jane Fonda's Brenda, a
glorious what-ever-happened-to-baby-Jane-type specimen of faded Hollywood
femininity. However briefly present, she also happens to be the best thing
about the film Youth, Paolo Sorrentino's first foray into the English language.
Many things that were fabulous about his previous film, La
Grande Bellezza, are sorely missing from this somewhat underwhelming new work.
Clearly referencing 8 1/2, Sorrentino has no problems with Fellini-esque excess,
adding melodramatic pathos and lots and lots of visual affectations whenever he
can. He does this knowingly, of which the above quote is proof, but not always
with clear intention or a necessity to the scene. It nearly always seems to be
a frivolous addition to the theme of lost youth and general decrepitude that
appears to be present everywhere in the ultra-luxurious Swiss spa where the
film is set.
A very problematic moment in the film is the hallucination
scene experienced by Harvey Keitel's character featuring every cringeworthy type
of female stereotype from cinematic history, from a barbarella-type scif-fi lady
to an awful Marilyn-Monroe-like child-woman. It highlights the strange, distanced
view on women in the film that is equally problematic in the presence of Miss Universe.
Whether clothed or unclothed and apparently "much smarter than you thought,"
it is suggested that she is DEFINITELY not there for looks alone, despite being
an object of pervy visual indulgence not long after. She becomes a cliché that
is simply insulting to all womankind.
Which leads me to vomit-inducing Paul Dano, of whom I'm
normally a fan, who plays the sycophant to both Michael Caine's and Keitel's
character, and proclaims with great sincerity: "you're not a great women's
director, you're a great director". His role is to stand by either's side
and mildly smile when a joke is made or congratulate either man for being so
incredibly successful and yet knowingly cynical about it. He is one of the most
infuriating characters with no apparent function apart from being the recipient
of one of the most unbelievable lines uttered in the film, by a young girl who
supposedly likes one of his more unfamiliar works.
Again Dano's character highlights just how many of the
surreal or just plain silly additions are mostly just there for their own sake and don't provide a real contribution to the story or character building. Another
example of this is the forcibly 'creative' use of a candy wrapper, which is
supposed to suggest musical creativity but mainly becomes highly irritating. It
shows the film's very sketchy use of music, which, although sometimes used successfully,
often fails completely by being incongruous or worse. Such as in the final
scene where we finally hear the much talked about "Simple Songs" that
turn out to be torture to listen to. The music, filled with schmaltz and sentimentality,
suitably concludes a film that seems not to have very much to say but
is desperate to make us feel emotional about it.
