Absurd, pretentious, juvenile

Rating: 1/10 (30 December 2015)

I'm trying to think how I'm going to generate 10 lines about this spectacularly terrible film - certainly one of the worst I've ever seen. The only way this can have been financed is by its inclusion of two "bankable" stars - Harvey Keitel and Michael Caine. However what it was that attracted them to the script beats me. Nonetheless they manage - Michael Caine in particular - to give what must surely be the least convincing performances of their careers. Which is hardly surprising considering the portentous drivel that they have to spout.
I've not bothered to look at anything about the team who made it but it has the feel of a vanity project authored by a group of wealthy film school graduates in their twenties who have minimal experience of life but who have seen a lot of European "art cinema". One recent film it reminded me of was "La Grande Belleza", the difference being that that film actually had some interesting ideas and strong performances.
I stopped watching twice and had a hard time convincing myself to invest any more time on it; on the second occasion, a couple of minutes into the concertscene, about 15 minutes before the end (it feels almost interminable) I didn't bother to resume. Toward the end of this pretentious and totally unconvincing farrago there are a couple of extended expository monologues which attempt to plug the holes in the sieve which constitutes a plot.
There's so much wrong with "Youth" it's impossible to find anything positive to say about it. To call it pretentious garbage would be to compliment it. The two star leads should be ashamed of themselves; they surely can't need the money.