User reviews

You expect thought-provoking films from Paul Cox, the director of Man of Flowers (1983), My First Wife (1984) and other films that take an uncompromising or quirky view of life. This film is another in that fine tradition.

Who hasn't thought about a first love and wondered? Perhaps wondered whether the break, when it came, was the right move? Or wondered why it broke off? Or wondered about a countless number of things that might or might not have happened?

Using that idea as the starting point, Cox constructed an intricate visual narrative about what could happen should an aging man – a widower – choose to contact the woman he first loved some forty-five years earlier, with the view of finding out how her life has turned out.

A perfectly innocent idea, one could think. Except that, when contacted, the man discovers that the woman is still married. Undeterred, he also realizes he is still as passionate now – or more so – and sets out to rekindle the flame of their youth. Equally she responds, at first tentatively, but soon with reckless abandon.

And so begins the re-awakening of a first love that both parties thought had withered away...but not entirely forgotten by either. And so, the fundamental question that Cox asks his players to portray, however, is this: just what sort of love is it now, after forty plus years? Is it still true love? Is it simply lust? Is it a mix? More importantly, what is love, after all?

With such a topic, this could have been reduced to a banal pot-boiler, a weepy soap, or grand melodrama in the hands of less experienced writer/directors. It's none of those: instead, it's a mature enquiry into the true nature of married love versus romance. Affairs, of course, have been a staple of Hollywood and others, I guess, in such well-remembered films as An Affair To Remember 1959), The Last Time I Saw Paris (1955), Brief Encounter (1944) and many others.

None of that saccharine sentimentality forms any part of this narrative. Instead, it's so down to earth, I began to wonder whether Australia has a peculiar kind of love: different cultures handle this topic differently, for sure, but only in Australia, I think, would a woman leave her lover's bed, go home, and then start cooking dinner for her aggrieved husband. Are Aussies that stolid, that practical, or that uncaring? Even as an Australian, I'm not sure...

There's very little in the manner of hysterical lamentations or outraged ranting; and only the husband shows brief anger towards his grown son, the doctor who tries to counsel his mother and father – to no avail, of course. What there's plenty of, however, is confusion, as each character tries to adjust to a couple in their mid-sixties having an open affair. So, as you might expect, there are moments of light comedy, wistful reminiscences, and, of course, rolling around in bed, locked together – but very tastefully done.

But is it all realistic, and truly representative, given the setting, the culture, and their age? Well, I'm sure most of us have seen true-life results of affairs: most are not pretty; some are down and dirty; a few are murderous. In contrast, this affair is quiet, contained and very civilized.

But, in Australia, I've never seen oldies like myself rolling around on a riverside grass verge, or kissing passionately on a suburban train station; it could happen, however, I'll grant you. However, most older Aussies – of the type portrayed - still have a remnant of that Celtic reserve brought over when the colony started in 1788; and it hangs on. Perhaps, then , Cox is simply holding up the idea that such an affair is possible, even between people who are so reserved, so settled and in the twilight of their diminishing years; and especially in Australia. In truth, I'd like to see that, and this story is as good as it gets, perhaps.

As the lover-come-back wannabe, Bud Tingwell, as Andreas, gives a great understated portrayal of a man who's found a new lease on life but, ironically, too late; Julia Blake, as Claire, is almost unbelievably stunning; Terry Norris, as John, the confused husband, is valiant in his efforts to win his wife back. The standout – albeit brief – performance, however, comes from Marta Dusseldorp, as Monique, Andreas's daughter whose care and concern for her aging father is achingly real.

My real criticism is with the script: at times, I was a bit uncomfortable with the lack of expletives you would expect to hear from people who are greatly upset emotionally, and all with diction that remains so perfectly enunciated, and with very little idiomatic or slang expressions. Not quite what you'd hear from Aussies in reality, I think, even those well educated and still religious, as they all apparently are. I doubt that even one of them said 'bloody'. Perhaps that was intentional by Cox, though, to garner a wider international audience?

Some may be disappointed in the ending as being too contrived, being almost a parody of an ecstatic whirling Dervish. My only thought is that there are so many endings that could happen. This was just one that had to happen.

Those aspects apart, it's still a fine story and film, and one that I'd recommend.

"Innocence" is the perfect title for this extraordinary film, a bold and eloquent gift to moviegoers of all ages from the brilliant Paul Cox. Nearly everything is perfect about this movie, in fact, including the casting of the radiant Julia Blake and the genuinely sweet Charles 'Bud' Tingwell in the pivotal roles. If you get the chance to see this on cable some evening, as I did tonight, do not miss the opportunity.

As a woman of 'a certain age' I speak from experience. The sentimentality seemed to me to be excessive. I found the story to be plausible, and the cast superb; it was in the execution that Paul Cox revealed an idealistic approach to men and women in love (at any age). I swear I aged an entire year during this 90-minute experience. I found myself taking deep breaths, wanting to say "Move it along, Paul, give up the ponderosity, let's see the amazing vitality that a love affair injects into formerly perfunctory lives. (That, unfortunately, happened in only one scene ... at the home of friends.) The flashbacks to the young lovers seemed repetitious because there was no progression, no development of the characters Again, I wanted to say, "We get it, Paul, we get it, they were in love--and no different from any couple in love." The ending could have been so much more interesting if Mr. Cox had not, indeed, taken the easy way out. However, I salute the effort to depict us oldsters as something other than grumpy grannies/gramps or eccentric fools.

It would be difficult to say anything meaningful about "Innocence". It received respectable reviews and some fringe awards and is the product of a capable but not renown Aussie auteur. The players are competent and overall it makes for an okay watch for those who can accept the implausible notion that old folks can somehow recapture a love they experienced some 40+ years before as young adults. The film may seem clumsy, awkward, and contrived because it assumes an absolute nature of love and seems to contradict the relative nature of love. It annoyingly bounces back and forth between the couple in youth and old age when it's more likely that to be in love 40+ years later they would have to go back to square one and start over making for a whole nother story. Also, Claire is a bit of a pill making such a capricious foray into the arms of her old flame knowing full well the impact it will have on her husband....etc. It may be of some interest to note that the 45+ group scored this film the same as the other adult age group on IMDB.com. Mild entertainment which will probably play best with sentimentalists with an appetite for old people stories. (B-)

This film took my breath away. It's been many months, perhaps years, since I last felt so moved by a feature film.

Paul Cox has certainly outdone himself with this one. There were times when I was reminded of `A Woman's Tale', his offering from around ten years ago, particularly during the discussions about life, death and love. In particular, his theme about death being a part of life continues in this feature.

The performances of Tingwell, Blake and Norris are outstanding, and the scenes of intimacy are tasteful and beautiful. The Australian scenes were filmed in Adelaide, and this city scrubs up well and does the story justice.

Cox makes ample use of his usual visual signatures - faces through glass doors, reflections in water, wind chimes, caged birds, people talking from the other side of trees in autumnal glory. However, for me, the scene in the church when Andreas plays `Jerusalem' on the pipe organ, managed to gather together the visual with the aural, and deliver a hefty dose of the emotional as well.

An astonishing film, and the most believable love story I have ever seen on the big screen.

"Innocence" has a startling premise -- that senior citizens have feelings, even romantic and sexual feelings.

The cinematography is luscious, as the golden memories of youth overtake current reality in a triangle transposed to a later time of life.

But the premise of a re-blossoming of first love and look of this Australian movie (shot partly in Belgium) is better than its execution. The dialog is a bit clunky and stagey -- I got so tired of the woman saying to the man: "You haven't changed in 40 years." Do people really not change based on life experiences? Sure seemed to me she was projecting the past on to him, or maybe it was a weakness in the acting.

I wanted to know more about their lives over that time that made them who they are now; there was a disconnect directly to their adolescent memories.

But none of the characters are stereotypes, and all are intelligent, including the adult children. The ending is nicely bittersweet.

(originally written 9/29/2001)

Paul Cox's "Innocence" is a beautiful, poignant gem that deserves your attention. It is a film that manages to be both realistic and completely uncynical at the same time(an unusual achievement these days).

The story concerns two people who were lovers as teenagers, separated, and meet again fifty years later. Upon meeting again they realize that they're still in love. It probably sounds sickeningly corny but it doesn't play that way. Cox details how the reigniting of their affair affects the people around them(friends, his daughter, her son and husband)and allows time for exquisitely intelligent conversations, my favorite of which takes place between the male protagonist(Charles Tingwell)and a priest concerning the reality of God.

"Innocence" is luminous.Seek it out.

Excellent treatment of the subject. Played finely, with accuracy. However I found in the movie more naivete than innocence, to defend an accepted position, the one of a love affair between two persons of the "bel age". All the drama was initiated and entertained by one character, Claire, who was old enough to think of keeping discretion on the matter. But there will not have been any cinema...

"Innocence" is uncompromising in its effort to explore a plausible human drama, refusing to offer simple or gratifying solutions. The conclusion of the film might seem a cop-out, but it is moving and credible (and had been dramatically prepared in earlier dialogue), and even the final voiceover avoids pat answers. The photography is particularly beautiful and the direction reminded me (this might seem farfetched) of Carl Theodor Dreyer--the close attention to facial expressions and the careful placement of the characters within meaningful environments especially evoke that master's style. This is a film that probably could not be shown successfully in any multiplex in the US, but if you can find it at an independent theater (or on video sometime) be sure to see it. I was particularly pleased to note that at least half the audience with whom I saw it at our local independent theater was under 30,and they gave every evidence of valuing it as much as the more senior members, though perhaps for other reasons. This is a great film.

I truly do not understand why so many viewers have raved about this film. I thought INNOCENCE was silly and much of it was downright embarrassing to watch. It could have been such a fine movie. The premise of the film (rekindled romance late in life) is a very interesting one. But the film is not much more than a 2nd rate soap opera. The script seems to have been taken from a series of Hallmark cards. The story is full of gaping holes. We do not know why Andreas contacts Clare after a 40-year interval in the first place; Andreas asks Clare to sleep with him BECAUSE HE MISSES HIS DEAD WIFE??? Come on! Andreas becomes terminally ill but it is only mentioned once in the film. The character's health never changes. There is a viewing in the film that features the corpse in a chapel, lying in repose in a BED, wearing NIGHTCLOTHES! I could not believe my eyes. The death scene prior to that viewing was so trite that I wanted to laugh out loud. The acting is abysmal. Charles Tingwell recites his lines as if he is addressing Parliment. He looks as if he is about to drop dead at any moment. In all of the other films I have seen him in, his roles are very small. Now I know why; he is too weak an actor to carry a substantial role. The man who portrays Clare's husband is even worse; an old crybaby. His character is without depth or dignity. And so is this movie. Stay away.

" They've (the audience) been desensitized -- they've been Pulp Fiction-ized. I don't condemn that, but we cannot live without love, we cannot live like this. At the end of this film, I wanted to say that love is the only thing that matters, and those who think that is naïve are wrong." -- Paul Cox.

In Innocence, a sweet film by Australian director, Paul Cox, a couple approaching seventy rekindle a love affair that started almost fifty years ago. Andreas (Charles "Bud" Tingwell), a widowed organist and music teacher, decides to write to Claire (Julia Blake), the woman he was in love with in Belgium in his youth. Claire has been putting up with a joyless marriage for the last twenty years with her husband John (Terry Norris) and agrees to meet Andreas to catch up on things. I guess you know where this is going. That's right, the two pick up right where they left off. John is hurt by his wife's infidelity and comes off as obtuse, even though it is evident that Claire has never taken any responsibility for the quality of their relationship.

It is nice to see that at least one director realizes that people over the age of thirty can actually experience physical sensation; however, will someone please tell Mr. Cox that there is more to growing old than talking about memories and anticipating death. Mr. Cox is an honest filmmaker who has his heart in the right place and no doubt wishes to restore some humanity to the cinema. I applaud him for that. Unfortunately, for me, this work comes across as strained and somewhat precious. It plays like a seventy-something TV movie special with all the pretensions of a serious art film. Cox uses dream sequences, flashbacks, jump cuts, and poetic music as if he was operating from a manual about how to make a serious art film.

Most of the lovemaking is suggested and is always in good taste but even this is a problem. If your point is that older people are still capable of romantic love, then don't be afraid to show it. The theme of the renewal of love after many years can be moving and poetic as in the magnificent novel of Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, "Love in the Time of Cholera". While the novel had fully-realized characters, here I found the lovers so ordinary and uninteresting that I had difficulty making any emotional connection with them. Tingwell speaks his lines in a flat monotone and does not exude much charisma.

I think the biggest problem I had was the film's overreaching for effect. Repetitious flashbacks of the young lovers and ersatz profundity add up for me to an unsatisfying experience. That the actors perform as well as they do under the circumstances is a tribute to their skill and professionalism. Over and over, the characters are asked to recite endless cliches that sound like they come from "Touched by an Angel". For example: "Each phase of life has its own kind of love", and "If God were called Beauty or Love, I would believe in Him", and "What really matters is love, everything else is rubbish", and "She wants to be needed, that's the way women are", and "Love becomes more real the closer it comes to death", and "I'm suffering but you don't care".

All that is missing is Ryan O' Neal saying that love means never having to say you're too old. At the end Claire says to Andreas, "Let's go somewhere where we can shed a few tears together". On this last point, I would join them. For a film that is full of sincerity but becomes lost in its own unctuous self-importance, perhaps a few tears might be in order.

The image of two seniors making out should be less than lovely. But not so. Like the rest of the film, it is tasteful, erotic and rather beautiful. The characters are all too real and the situation they find themselves in all too common. Except they do something about it! I'm a senior so maybe I identified with it more than younger viewers might. Hollywood could not have made this film. But the Aussies not only took it on but executed it splendidly and sensitively. I was set to vote a 10 but the ending rather disappointed me. I don't want to reveal it. Let's just say it didn't exhibit the creativity and daring that the rest of the film does. But it still rates a 9 as one of the most interesting, delicate and fulfilling motion pictures I've ever seen.

In this film Paul Cox has created the most moving depiction of mature age love that I have ever seen. Resolutely unsentimental, the film is breathtakingly beautiful (the cinematography of Tony Clark is outstanding) and brilliantly acted. Julia Blake gives one of the great performances of Australian (dare I say World) cinema - she is like a sleeping woman who suddenly wakes up to remember that life is about passion. And her beautiful face is unforgettable. Charles "Bud" Tingwell is also excellent as her lover - and Terry Norris is equally fine as her husband.

And there are images that stay in your mind - reflections in glass, in train doors, in steamed up mirrors. The melding of memory and the present in seamless edits and dissolves is also astonishing. And Paul Grabowsky's score is hauntingly beautiful. I don't want to say much more because this film needs to be savoured with a fresh mind. I would just like to say that this may well be Paul Cox's greatest film.

If you haven't seen Paul Cox's film, 'A Woman's Tale'...see it. It's one of the best films ever made. Pure and simple.

Innocence is only a step behind that. Shows how our emotions never change, even in old age...the love, the passion, the jealousy, it's all there. Breaks many stereotypes about older people by showing them to be full of the same reactions we all are. Not just calm and quiet and 'respectful'...but human and full of a wide range of feelings.

GREAT FILM!!

Also see: 'Bliss' and 'Lantana' by the Australian Director Ray Lawrence if you want to know how good Australian films can be.

I'm not a great writer - and certainly never imagined myself reviewing a film. However, I saw this film and was totally speechless as the credits were rolling. The beauty, intensity of emotion, and honesty of it all actually took my breath away. I just sat in my seat - fighting back the tears - and was glad that I had taken the risk to watch it.

You can be sure that I told all my friends of this incredible film! (Roger Ebert featured it in last year's "Most Overlooked Film Festival" at the U of I in Champaign, IL.

See this film. You'll be glad you did!

OK OK I can't bear it any longer, I cannot sit here and allow this movie to get 8+ stars without anyone saying anything less than the highest of praises as some flawless work of art (besides JulMel of Washington's comments which I appreciated). I feel it my civic duty to warn anyone contemplating hiring this movie out that it is sooooo bad that you should only get it if you are in the mood for an evening of side-splitting hysteria, or if you are a drama teacher and want to show your class a classic example of bad acting.

I saw this movie last year at the Sydney Film Festival and it was so bad I was actually thoroughly entertained. I would have walked out but I couldn't stop laughing, literally, I'm not being facetious. The acting by both Tingwell and that other croney that he falls in love with are embarrassing (I was blushing just watching it), oh and not to mention her husband, there's a part where he gets mad and I think he says the ‘F' word and I nearly wet myself in hysterics. And what was with the slow motion shots of when they were young lovers?…Sorry Mr Cox, this is not Three Colours Blue, and throwing in a few overly pretentious sweeping arty shots just adds to the comedy. And what about the bit when they are going for a picnic or something and she says `Oh I like talking about life!!'. Someone should have sacked the scriptwriter then and there, oh sorry you WERE the scriptwriter, ok well someone else working on the project should have had the heart to just kindly point out that such corny, puke inducing lines make the whole story paper thin and expose them as a pair of frauds rather than the fiercely deep and meaningful couple capable of pondering life and the universe you were trying to portray them as.

Look I hate to sound like an unqualified heathen (I know this review hardly comes across as particularly credible) and as I've never made a movie before or even written a script I really can't talk with so much authority on the subject, but honestly the whole audience were in shock at how bad the movie was that night, quite a few walked out. To be fair I did like the premise of the story, hell that's why I chose it out of 40 odd films at the festival that year, and I don't think the plot had any problems as such, but please, the character development, acting, script and directorial pretentiousness just made the whole thing an absolute joke. Unless of course that's what you were intending to do and it was meant to be a satirical farce, then I say thumbs up, 10 stars, woohoo, pure entertainment!!!

Paul Cox's Innocence is an unconventional, often very poignant love story about an old man named Andreas (Charles Tingwell) who writes to his first love Claire (a simple yet complex Julia Blake) and the two meet again. Claire has had a husband John (Terry Norris) for a number of decades now, and yet by some powerful if inexplicable force they fall in love once again as they did when they were 16. However this affair comes as a shock to John, but the story unfolds as if it weren't trying to reach any total, formulaic conclusion; which is just one of the films many strong points.

The other strong points come from the terrific performances by Tingwell, Norris and especially Blake who act they're roles with a realism and heart you don't see often in love stories. And of course, Cox delivers fine direction and an even finer script to the mix. Only 2 flaws get in the way- things could've been explained a little better here and they're when it came to some of the reasoning and emotion, plus the ending was a downer. Otherwise, it's a quite worthwhile picture, especially for fans of Cox, or for anybody sick of seeing films up on the marqui with names like Glitter and Soul Survivors. Grade: Between A & A-

It is a welcome event to see a truly adult film which deals with the important issues of love relationships, life and death in people's later years. Since Western culture so often hides or shies away from the idea of older adults having loving, sexual relationships, it is wonderful to see a film which treats this subject so intelligently and straight-forwardly. A beautiful film on all counts.

The film "Innocence" captures so much that other films would not even choose to address, chief among them being the transformational nature of love for older adults. And yet, while proceeding to tell a story about two people, once friends & lovers, who have led fairly ordinary lives since parting from each other a half century before, it treats them with great dignity, even capturing their wonderful shyness as they rediscover each other anew. Beyond the two major characters, played by Charles Tingwell and Julia Blake, the film manages to invite interest and even a sense of empathy for the other characters in the film.

There is great beauty in the way the film flashes back to the youthful friendship of the couple, while also showing how their love for each other is rekindled and briefly capturing the greater period of time when the two lead entirely separate lives. I found the film to be as much about hope as about the inevitable decline and death older people are confronted with daily. The characters are willing to take risks as they rediscover what it was that bound them together so many years before, even as they deal with their own infirmities. The film is about retaining a sense of what is possible in the present while not forsaking the past, a love story that should have meaning for people of any age.

Exceptional story, script and performances all around. Beautiful cinematography (and colour-editing in the flashback sequences). Julia Blake is making my early list as a 2001 Oscar nominee (even if she is 30 years older than I am and looks 10 years younger). It's about time a feature film showed mature people as something other than asexual, jolly old grandparents. Criticized by some for being too 'sentimental,' I found the story fairly realistic -- it doesn't take the easy way out, even if the ending is predictable. Still, I cried all the way through, not out of sorrow, but out of feeling for the characters.

At a glance, this film's synopsis could be described by cynics as a geriatric love story. I truly hope that you look beyond that synopsis and take yourself to see this film.

Claire (Julia Blake) and Andreas (Charles "Bud" Tingwell) were young lovers in Belgium just after the war. The film is set some 50 years later in contemporary Melbourne where Andreas discovers that Claire is now living in the same city. He writes to her, they meet. They rekindle what they had so many years ago. The challenges which Andreas and Claire are as real for them as they are for budding lovers of all ages. Terry Norris, who is Blake's real life husband, also turns in a wonderful performance as John, Claire's husband.

It seems unfortunate that 'love stories' are almost exclusively younger generation forays. Paul Cox (the film's director) does a magnificent job with an 'autumnal' love story. It is unsentimental and heartbreaking all at the same time has has one of the most passionate love scenes I have ever seen. I will never be able to look in the reflection of a train window again without recalling this stunning film.

Long ago I realized that American films are not the only game in town. And since the advent of cable and movie rentals I have the opportunity to see a wider selection of movies from all over the world. I have to say that when watching movies from Australia I am never disappointed. Several examples of movies I've seen this year include Rabbit-Proof Fence and Lantana. And now this wonderful gem of a movie. Terrific performances [particularly by Julia Blake] and a lovely and loving story combine to make this a beautiful movie experience.