If I invited you to see a movie about a group of elderly rock-and-roll singers, your response might well be, “No thanks, I’ve already seen the new Rolling Stones documentary.” But while it would make a perfect double feature with Shine a Light, Young at Heart is in fact about a rather different geezer group. Based at a Northampton, Massachusetts Center for the elderly, the chorus—average age in its current incarnation, 81—has toured the world with its eclectic and changing repertoire. Their material includes “Stayin’ Alive,” “I Wanna Be Sedated,” “Road to Nowhere,” “Should I Stay or Should I Go”—okay, I know what you’re thinking. If the group itself isn’t some kind of cruel joke, the film certainly must be. I wondered that myself. After all, this is not an ensemble of any musical skill in the traditional sense. The singers are mostly amateur, and would go to their graves without knowing the songs they perform were they not selected by their director, Bob Cilman (who at times looks uncomfortably like a Christopher Guest character).

There isn’t a lot of harmony singing, and the main factor for adding a song to their show seems to be whether enough of them can memorize the lyrics. As Cilman tries to rehearse them through a reading of Sonic Youth’s “Schizophrenic,” more than a few tell him they hate the song. But they learn it anyway, and the end result becomes the highlight of their show. Clearly they would be just as happy singing selections from the Lerner and Lowe songbook—but then who would book them? Made for British television, Young at Heart may entice audiences as a novelty item, but it has more than its share of surprisingly moving moments as we watch people who might otherwise (let’s face the cruel truth of aging in America today) be sitting around waiting to die, setting themselves an ongoing challenge. A lot of their songs may be based on the joke of being sung by old people, but at least they’re in on the joke. And when they sneak something in on you to which their age brings an added meaning, like their rendition of Coldplay’s “Fix You,” the film has moments you won’t soon forget.

—m. faust