It seems like an impossibly adorable premise -- a documentary about old people singing rock 'n roll. But despite the potential for cloying sentimentality, Young@Heart, now on DVD from Fox Home Entertainment, is a charming, moving work about folks who find creative fulfillment in the later years of their lives, and about a musical director who mines unexpected emotional depth from pop songs.

The group's founder, Bob Climan, founded the group in the 1980's, and discovered that audience preferred hearing his senior singers tackle rock songs than go through the same old standards and novelty tunes. The film follows rehearsals that include songs like Sonic Youth's "Schizophrenia" and music by the Ramones, Talking Heads and David Bowie. Not that it's necessarily easy for the members, who are mostly fans of jazz and classical music, to finesse the program. There's some concern that the group, which features singers from their 60's into their 90's, won't be able to master Allen Toussaint's complex, syncopated "Yes We Can Can," in which the word "can" is repeated some 70 times, but it becomes clear that mastering challenges like this is one of the things that keeps Gilman and the group's members devoted to the cause.

As with most documentaries of this type, the focus is on a handful of singers, There's Fred, a deep-voiced fellow who'd quit the group due to congestive heart failure but has returned for a special engagement. Eileen's a 92-year-old former war bride with a sparkling demeanor. And Lenny, a WWII flying ace, gets the honor of driving his chorus carpool because he's the only one with decent eyesight. Where Young@Heart succeeds spectacularly is in slowly revealing the warmth, humor and complexity of the people involved, so that they become far more than the caricatures of old folks that one usually sees in movies, which makes their triumph and heartaches far more moving than you'd expect.

And yes, of course, there are heartaches. Two members of the chorus passed away during the film, and the effect on the group is profound. In this context, Gilman's song choices become diabolically clever, as when Fred hauls his oxygen tank to his chair, settles in and starts singing Coldplay's "Fix You":

And the tears come streaming down your face
When you lose something you can't replace
When you love someone but it goes to waste
Could it be worse?
Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you.

Suddenly, this trite, maudlin song has a very personal meaning, and it hits home just how vital this chorus is to the well-being of tis elderly members.

There's a lot that's uplifting, as well, like when the group performs at a jail and utterly charms the inmates, and the sheer, perverse pleasure of hearing a group of 70-somethings sing "Stayin' Alive." Director Stephen Walker almost does himself in early in the film by injecting a little too much of himself into the movie, but he eventually settles back and lets the story tell itself. By the end of Young@Heart, it's impossible not to feel enchanted and encouraged by the joyful noise made by these singers, a reminder that community and creativity make life worth living, whatever your age.

Fox's new DVD offers a nice, clean anamorphic widescreen transfer in the original 1.85:1 aspect ratio. It's a little soft and grainy, but it's a fairly low-budget documentary, so that's to be expected. The Dolby Digital 5.1 audio is good.

The extras are rather perfunctory -- 10 deleted scenes which add nothing to the experience of the film (but it's nice to see more of the cast), a five-minute piece on the group performing in Los Angeles, and the theatrical trailer.

Dawn Taylor looks forward to joining a senior chorus, in two or three years.

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