“Hope I die before I get old…” Forget The Who’s (in)famous verdict on ageing. Watching the exuberant 70-to-90-yearolds of the Massachusetts-based Young@Heart Chorus belting out Bowie, Talking Heads and The Clash, you start believing that retirement lends a certain something to rock’n’roll.
Joy and pathos mostly, in Stephen Walker’s fond, uplifting and unabashedly sentimental documentary, which follows breathlessly as the oldsters rehearse a new show and battle with everything from tricksy Sonic Youth lyrics to leukaemia.
Originally shot for UK telly, the film’s fly-on-the-wall wobblycam visuals are enlivened by Sally George’s weirdly witty music-video inserts: witness The Ramones’ teenboredom ditty ‘I Want To Be Sedated’ revamped as a geriatric black comedy in wheelchairs. If this film were any more heartwarming, your chest would melt.
