Any film would be burdened by the weight of a director's legendary status. And when said director has been away from the screens for some nine years then the task of the film to step from behind the shadow is doubly hard. The director in question is, of course, Francis Ford Coppola and he returns this week with \"Youth Without Youth\" - an elegiac adaptation of Mircea Eliade's dense novella. Starring Tim Roth as Dominic Mateo \"Youth Without Youth\" charts the 70 year old linguist's perplexing journey across war-torn nations via fragile hearts to his ultimate goal of discovering a language before time - the proto language. That Mateo is able to achieve this is courtesy to a freak accident, the professor is struck by lightening and the surge of electricity somehow regenerates him to a younger state of body whilst retaining his keen intellect and a few nifty little tricks besides such as siring a fully fledged doppelganger. In his search for the ancient language he must avoid the suspicions of an occult Nazi sect as well as keeping out of the clutches of the allies (represented by a cameoing Matt Damon) who wish to use Mateo's superhuman-like abilities. But, it's neither of the two world powers that ensnare Mateo but rather the love of a beautiful tourist travelling in Switzerland. Veronica (Alexandra Maria Lara) reminds Mateo of his first love and she may be the key to unlocking the proto-language. It's always nice to see Coppola back making films that stretch the imagination but this is not one of them - all \"Youth Without Youth\" stretches is your patience. This is a horribly high-maintenance offering replete with pretentious narration and a dreary-eyed Tim Roth in the lead. There is very little to recommend this trite film other than Alexandra Maria Lara's supporting act (here delivering a solid performance to build on her growing acclaim).<\/p>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n<\/div>","fnc":"googleTrackerHelper.doTrackPage( '\/'Youth-Without-Youth-film_options~20723'\/Reviews\/ViewAll\/1' );"}