In Paolo Sorrentino’s Youth, Michael Caine plays Fred Ballinger, a ‘retired’ composer who is vacationing at a hotel-spa in the foothills of the Swiss Alps with his daughter (Rachel Weisz) and friend Mick (Harvey Keitel), who is trying to write the screenplay for his latest film. Like his central character, Sorrentino treats the film like a symphony rising to a crescendo and then descending to a slow, soothing hum as Fred and Mick muse about their lost youth and how little they remember of it. Caine delivers a brilliant performance as an old man who is the victim of his own apathy.