'Young@Heart'

Rating:

BY GLENN GAMBOA | glenn.gamboa@newsday.com

10:32 AM EDT, April 8, 2008

The premise of the new documentary "Young@Heart" makes it sound like some sort of bizarro-world " American Idol."

Instead of lots of young people singing the songs of older folks in pursuit of fame and fortune and maybe a career in music, "Young@Heart" focuses on the Young@Heart Chorus, a bunch of older folks - all older than 75 - singing the songs of (relatively) young people out of a love of music. Whatever fame and fortune the group from Northampton, Mass., may get from this British documentary is purely accidental, though also remarkably deserved.

The way 92-year-old Eileen Hall turns The Clash's punk classic "Should I Stay or Should I Go?" into something nearly Shakespearean is brilliant. The way 78-year-old Pat Linderme turns Sinead O'Connor's "Nothing Compares 2 U" into a touching eulogy after the death of a choir member is masterful. And it's hard not to appreciate the wishes of Bob Dylan's "Forever Young" when delivered by this choir.

But what makes "Young@ Heart" work well, beyond its song-choice gimmicks and beyond the ready-for-YouTube music videos for "Stayin' Alive" or "I Wanna Be Sedated," is the way director-narrator Stephen Walker focuses on how great music transcends age and generational shifts.

The movie could easily have worn out its welcome quickly, by filling it with shots of the seniors recoiling the way they do when confronted with the electric guitar squall of Sonic Youth's "Schizophrenia." But the down-for-anything choir members are too savvy to let things become too jokey. And Walker clearly cares too much about his subjects to let it happen, spending time with various choir members to show how music has improved - and, in many cases, lengthened - their lives. He makes the documentary's centerpiece Fred Knittle's poignant performance of Coldplay's "Fix You," with the 81-year-old drawing oxygen from tubes into his nose as he sings about life's failures and the chorus comforting him with talk of lights guiding him home.

It's a moment that no amount of "Idol" marketing could duplicate, one that clearly captures music's healing properties, a moment that makes "Young@Heart" hard to forget no matter what your age.

YOUNG@HEART (PG). A documentary that starts out being about a New England senior citizens choir that tackles alternative rock classics from The Clash, Talking Heads and Sonic Youth and ends up showing the power of music. 1:48 (brief vulgarities). At area theaters.