FOUNTAIN OF TROUBLE

PENCHANT FOR STORY TELLING RETURNS RICTHIE TO CINEMATIC ART FORM

By PETER THOMAS BUSCH

John Krasinski as Luke, the treasure hunter, and Natalie Portman as Charlotte, the museum curator, play brother and sister caught up in their father’s passion for uncovering the great archeological mysteries of the ancient world.

Charlotte eventually, under much protest, becomes a reluctant co-adventurer in her brother’s quest in Fountain of Youth (2025).

Director Guy Ritchie brings his unique sense of humor and penchant for slow motion vignettes to the adventure that is funded by an ultra rich patron dying of liver cancer.

Owen, played by Domhnall Gleeson, is so desperate to live a bit longer than everybody else that he spends a lot of his fortune on uncovering the clues that lead to the treasure, such as fantastically raising the Passenger ship,  RMS Lusitania, from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean where the ship has rested since being sunk during World War I.

Clues to the location of the Fountain of Youth have been placed in six famous works of art passed down through the generations.

Luke’s problem solving abilities, combined with Charlotte’s knowledge of art history, piece together the journey amidst the stylized Guy Ritchie whimsy inserted within very serious circumstances.

Ritchie stays away from depicting scenes of drugs, guns and killing, which he otherwise would have a penchant for doing, and returns to the style more with the same tone and atmosphere as the pair of films starring Robert Downy Jr and Jude Law, Sherlock Holmes (2009) and Sherlock Holmes:  A Game of Shadows (2011).

Luke and Charlotte are paired as binary opposites, with Luke driven more by emotion and intuition while Charlotte is more rational, but then she spends a lot of her time in knee jerk protests to the chosen methods of her sibling.

The competitive sister also has a penchant for taking the moral high ground in the adventure as the camera pans through one crime scene after another that her brother has created in an attempt to uncover more clues to the mystery.

Of course, there would be, in a Guy Ritchie film, other nuanced complications other than the uncertainty as to whether the Fountain of Youth exists at all, such as a team of guardians trying to keep the Fountain of Youth hidden, and a team of police operatives trying to prevent further art heists.

Krasinski continues to play the reckless anti-hero, constantly incentivising the audience to believe in the journey.

And Portman continues to play the didactic skeptic, even as the treasure hunters get closer and closer to the truth.

Fountain of Youth is an Apple Original film streaming on Apple TV+.