Youth - it's about aging.

Rating: 8/10 (9 July 2019)

Youth is a beautifully and thoughtfully made film by Paul Sorrentino - about aging. Caine and Keitel are two old men, best friends, staying in a fancy Swiss hotel for the summer.
Fred Ballinger (Caine) is a famous conductor/composer, now retired, and Keitel is a film director, Mick Boyle, who is working on his film while at the hotel, putting the script together with the actors who will appear in it. Ballinger's daughter (Weisz) is her father's assistant, and she is staying with him.
An emissary for Queen Elizabeth visits Ballinger to ask him to conduct his own composition, Simple Songs, for Prince Philip's birthday. He refuses. That portion is based on a situation with Ricardo Muti, who could not agree with the Queen on repertoire and ultimately refused to conduct a concert.
Michael Caine gives a great performance as a man who feels his life is over. He comes off as being much more fragile than we usually see him, even at his age. He has some very funny dialogue. Harvey Keitel is wonderful as a man going forward, feeding off the energy of the young actors with whom he is working. Rachel Weisz as Lena is heartfelt as a woman who has both anger and love for her father. I saw her on stage -
she's so stunning it's ridiculous.
The scenery and the music are flawless.
I can't say much more about this film - you either get it or you don't. It's about aging, how you choose to deal with it, love, looking back, looking forward, memories, and one other big thing - youth.