Young @ Heart (2007)

Very few and far between are those movies that genuinely affect on an emotional level. Film's ability to merge both sound and vision and to tune those specific, sentimental neurons is one championing factor not available to many other mediums. The Wachowski's have made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and Kubrick has scared the living daylights out of me. Haneke has made me wince and Vinterberg has made me cringe. Moore has made me want to kill someone and Buñuel has made me want to kill everyone.

Until now though, the only film to make me weep like a baby was Winterbottom's truly powerful and vastly underrated A Mighty Heart (2007). British film-maker Stephen Walker has added another to this list. With Young @ Heart he gives us a very potent and heartrending documentary following a chorus band with an average age of 81. It's the final 7-week rehearsal period before their next live annual performance and songs by Sonic Youth, Talking Heads, The Troggs and James Brown still require a lot of work.

Founded in 1982 by manager Bob Cilman (52), his meticulous ability to apply pressure on his divos and divas is equal only to the selection of songs that are both amusing and poignant. As the gig approaches general health concerns arise and there are even deaths to contend with. So much so that the films crescendo to the final concert brings different meanings to songs heard throughout the film, most significantly Coldplay’s Fix You.

It is perhaps further amazing that all this is accomplished despite the look and feel of a BBC2 documentary on par with Louis Theroux. Walker is just as annoying yet thankfully has fewer on-screen moments as the film progresses. What a shame then that more of that off-screen time wasn’t spent keeping Cilman in check. His tendency to break the fourth wall seems out of place, almost like a video diary more akin to Big Brother rather than a documentary.

As opposed to crowning concert-movies like Stop Making Sense (1984), Heart of Gold (2006) or Gimme Shelter (1970), Young @ Heart offers an opportunity to enter a world of unknown stars. An exhausting, emotional, roller-coaster of a film, complete with 25 retirees at the helm, truly amazing.