Directed by: Stephen Walker
Review by: Laura Hawbaker
Images from the punk rock era are emblazoned in the minds of all reckless youth. Taut torsos, scripted in anarchy tattoos. Green mohawks and shaved skulls. Lithe, frenetic rock shows, bodies violently smashing into one another without a thought or care for the organs within. A heart, a lung, a liver, a spine… carelessly bashed into the beat.
Now imagine the music of punk sung by Joe Strummer’s grandma.
Young@Heart, a documentary by Stephen Walker, follows the travails of the Northampton-based Young at Heart choir, which features amateur singers (with an average age of 80) singing renditions of punk, rock and R&B songs from the annals of rock history. Young@Heart follows the turbulent seven weeks leading up to the choir’s new show, “Alive and Well.” The choir members—who prefer to listen to classical music and show tunes—struggle to learn (and remember) new songs such as Sonic Youth’s “Schizophrenia” and James Brown’s “I Feel Good.”
Like films about penguins and kids’ spelling bees, Young@Heart belongs to the modern inundation of documentaries that spotlight a charming, quirky subject matter. These documentaries tend to be light, crowd-pleasing fluff, and it would’ve been easy for Walker to exploit the camp of “old people singing young people songs” (something the choir itself can be guilty of).
Young@Heart’s saving grace is Walker’s unflinching look at the travails of the elderly. In fact, choir director Bob Cilman jokingly greets his singers by asking if anyone has any new ailments. These 70, 80, and 90-somethings suffer from debilitating health problems and seek out purpose in their daily lives. It is a truth that crosses generational boundaries—the search for meaning. The Ramones and the Sex Pistols fought for a way to rebel. Prince pushed sexual boundaries. Elaine, Joe, and the other members of the Young at Heart choir find value in lives that are nearing their end. In doing so, they demonstrate the importance of living life with zest and humor. Lenny, a former World War II pilot, drives his carpool with all the maniacal fervor of a stuntman. Steve, the choir’s own 70 year old Casanova, has a hot car, a hot girl, and a hot love life.
The most poignant storyline comes from two former choir members—Bob and Fred—who both left due to health problems. Fred is a magnetic, larger than life figure with a rolling baritone voice and huge range. He suffers from congestive heart failure after, as he puts it, “years of smoking and carousing,” and uses an oxygen tube to breathe. Bob, one of the choir’s most memorable voices (we hear clips of him singing a beautiful rendition of “Every Breath You Take”) has approached death’s door multiple times after suffering spinal meningitis. Bob lives for the choir. In the dementia following his meningitis, he sang tunes from the show; even when he suffers a relapse and is severely weakened, he hangs the choir’s poster on the wall across from his hospital bed, staring longingly at it.
Bob Cilman decides to bring these two veterans back for “Alive and Well” to perform a duet of Coldplay’s “Fix You.”
By the final performance, the duet has become a solo.
Fred struggles onto stage, carrying his oxygen. He begins a somber, melodic version of the song, his rolling voice raw with emotion. When sung by the 31 year old lead man of Coldplay, Chris Martin, the lyrics are easily overlooked. However, when performed as a swan song by the teary-eyed Fred, they take on profound meaning. “Lights will guide you home and ignite your bones, and I will try…. to fix you.”
The same can be said of all the songs the choir takes on. Surely, the Ramones did not intend for nursing home habitants to sing “I Wanna Be Sedated,” nor did the Bee Gees predict senior-citizens at the dusk of their lives would break into “Stayin’ Alive.”
The choir’s eldest member, Elaine, is one of the film’s stars. At 92, the grizzly chinned Elaine has all the vivacious spunk of a 62 year old. Her small, hunched frame totters with the aide of her cane from rehearsal to rehearsal. Elaine is the only member of her nursing home with her own key to the front door; she sometimes returns from gigs long after the nursing home staff has turned in for the night. Elaine flirts with Walker and his cameramen, downs shots backstage with the boys, and gives an enthusiastic rendition of “I Feel Good” that sends the audience into hysterics.
The crowd in the movie theater laughs and cheers throughout the film, but the biggest reaction comes during the closing credits: sorrowful gasps and outcries of disbelief upon learning that a certain member of the choir had passed away.
This is the film’s lasting imprint, and the common thread that ties these senior citizens to the rockers of the punk revolution. Young@Heart reminds us of death’s nearness and inevitability, but that we must—either in spite of, or because of it—live life to the fullest, until the very last beat of our hearts.
