Coppola's first film in ten years was this very strange and somewhat unwieldy adaptation of Mircea Eliade's novella about a professor who, after being struck by a bolt of lightening, regresses to a much younger self, (a kind of Benjamin Button in reverse), allowing him to go find his 'lost' love and continue his life studies, beginning during the rise of Nazism in Europe and moving into the atomic age. It's the kind of wordy, literary picture that the American cinema often tackled as if doing us a favour by bringing the great works of literature to the masses and which, in too many cases, were often just clunking bores but then this is Coppola, a man never afraid of experimentation or of taking a risk so "Youth Without Youth" is, if nothing else, a bold movie.
It was a failure, of course. Critics no longer raced to find a lost master making a grand comeback and audiences, the few that went to see it, found it bewildering and bewildering it is. Tim Roth, a great actor who has never really been given his dues, is the professor and he's perfectly cast here but Coppola's screenplay does him no favours while poor Bruno Ganz is straddled with the awkward role of the doctor who helps him while Coppola, who despite his best efforts, is still guilty of literaryitis, (this is wordy in the worst possible way). Who did he think would go to see it? On the plus side, like so much of Coppola's work, it looks terrific. Cinematographer Mihai Malaimare Jr. bathes the film in a gorgeous autumnal glow. Yes, it may ultimately be a failure but it's an honourable one and is still worth seeking out.
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