Netflix Minute: Young@Heart

Netflix Minute is a weekly feature highlighting a title from Netflix's catalog of instant view films. If you want to spend a night snuggled up with a bag of popcorn and don't want to drive to the video store, this is for you.

Young@Heart was nowhere near my radar when I hit the blue "Play" button on Netflix's website. Less than five minutes in, the sights and sounds of an 80-year old woman singing "Should I Stay Or Should I Go" in front of a full cheering theater audience kept me watching. The premise of the Young at Heart Chorus should do the same for you. Simply put, this movie tells the story of a chorus of a seniors aged 70 and up who tour the world singing songs unconventional for their age.

The story starts at a point where the Y@H chorus is back in their hometown in Massachusetts preparing for future shows. Since the group's inception in the early eighties, members and acts have revolved in and out as age has taken them where they need to be. This time, the director of the chorus Bob Cilman is trying to bring a set of four new contemporary songs to the show. As expected, a group of seniors takes a bit of time to stick to these songs, dealing with lyrics far divorced from their own use of the language.

The songs the group sings, the passion of each of the members, the joy produced from that much-desired excitement from a pumped audience, and the comedy that rises from people taken out of their element keep the film moving at a great pace. Besides these enjoyable aspects of Young@Heart, director Steven Walker clearly seeks to explore the reality of mortality among a group of 70+ men and women. Gallows humor is abundant throughout, but it's truly amazing to see each chorus member deal with the possibility of their friends not being able to show up to practice the next day. Whether or not that absence means a terrible sickness or even death, it never ceased to inspire me when I saw these people sing their hearts out on stage while being in proximity to these issues.

When my girlfriend asked me to watch Young@Heart, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. With no more knowledge about it other than its genre being listed in Netflix as "Documentary", the emotional and comedic impact it had on me was completely unexpected. Director Steven Walker clearly has the chops for making something seemingly mundane in the real world feel truly dramatic and harrowing.