Kritiken

All of which is to say that Forever Young is two solid hours of theater-kid energy, a film that wholeheartedly believes that the art of acting is a beautiful, agonized, possibly holy mission, and if (like me) you don’t exactly subscribe to that ideology, this is an incredibly irritating film.

It’s rare that a film really makes you feel the communal energy that comes with both a group of young people living a life-changing experience together and when actors get together to explore the creative process, but she and her astonishing ensemble truly immerse you in this environment and the result is something that borders on the euphoric even as tragedy encroaches on this youthful utopia.

Tedeschi does not seem particularly interested in convincing her audience of the quality of this teaching or type of performance, and “Forever Young” is at its best when it works as a relatively straightforward but enjoyable ensemble film.

“Forever Young” is Bruni Tedeschi’s strongest work to date, channeling her mercurial performance style and feisty screen presence through a screen language that asks if nostalgia is really all that it’s cracked up to be.

“Forever Young” seems to exist partially to remind us that enjoying elite social status is nobody’s fault, as if wealth is a helpless condition that it’s futile, and rather gauche, to mention.

While actors may have a natural penchant for drama, with three teen pregnancies, a sexual circle dance of interchangeable partners and an AIDS scare, Forever Young feels somewhat like all ten seasons of Beverly Hills, 90210 crammed into one film.

Where something like Alan Parker’s Fame gave us enough time with each character to flesh out their hopes, dreams and downfalls, Forever Young has a restlessness, never allowing us to sit with a character for long enough to care about their fate.

"Forever Young" sometimes seems to view its own characters through the rosy tint of nostalgia...

Endless drama, perpetual pouting and nonstop narcissism in this epically tiresome movie from director Valerie Bruni-Tedeschi and screenwriter Agnes De Sacy...

The full throttle, pedal-to-the-metal acting style won’t be for everyone, and the film may be a draining, somewhat stressful experience for anyone remotely introverted. Still, there is an infectious exuberance to the picture, which unfolds like a scrapbook of intensely felt memories and which largely, but not entirely, focusses on Bruni Tedeschi’s alter ego, Stella (the magnetic Nadia Tereszkiewicz).

It’s a sweet but oddly circumspect film, ruled by a friction between warring demands: the allure of wistful memories and the rigor of complex appraisal.... It’s when Forever Young moves beyond the familiar melodrama of youthful love that it begins to tap into more authentic territory: the demands of a still-misunderstood craft and the blurred line between life and performance.

It’s always watchable, and it has a distinctively grainy, intimate look, but the vague, generic characters and incidents are the kind of thing you might scribble on the back of an envelope without having done any research at all. If you’ve ever seen a film about performing arts students – the sort of people who are going to live forever and who are going to learn how to fly (high) – then you’ll have seen it all before.