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INNOCENCE Send This Review to a Friend
There's a condescending impression on the part of some that senior citizens are no longer candidates for love and sex, and that they are over-the-hill when it comes to feelings of romance and sensuality. Australian director Paul Cox dispenses with that libel in his richly observed new "Innocence," a refreshing, moving drama that is not only about senior love but involves a triangle consisting of a rekindled affair between a couple who had been lovers in their youth and the woman's suddenly jilted husband. Cox's screenplay, his understanding direction, strong performances and the topic itself make this an exceptionally worthy film.
Julia Blake plays Claire, a woman in her late sixties whose marriage to Terry Norris as John is perfunctory. They haven't had sex for 20 years, and although John loves her, he doesn't show it in ways that would solve her yearnings. Charles Tingwell as the retired organist and music teacher Andreas, with whom Claire had been in love when they were youths in post-war Belgium, is a lonely widower and writes to Claire in the hope of seeing her. They meet and the old sparks are there in a new form, with events leading to their sleeping together in a scene that is expressed with delicate candor. Believing in honesty, she stuns her husband with the news, and it is a measure of how much he takes her for granted that he thinks she's joking. His attitude is that such relations are beyond people of their age.
How this all works out is fascinating, as it not only involves the three protagonists but their grown children. The audience can take pleasure from this window opening on such a relationship, which has its ominous side as well, since both lovers know that the future is limited. The film gains from an honest effort to examine the feelings that have been stirred and issues involved for each of the lovers, especially for Claire.
Blake gives a performance that is nothing less than glowing as Claire, and Tingwell's Andreas is sympathetically earnest and persistent. Norris cuts a tragic figure as the shocked husband, but after getting over the rage, the actor is particularly good in expressing John's sincere but clumsy and late effort at tenderness in trying to regain the love of his wife. Ultimately the film eases into a bittersweet tone.
Despite the overall quality and power of the work, Cox does something annoying by flashing back far too frequently to the young lovers in scenes paralleled with the present. Once the differences and similarities between the older and younger lovers are established, you don't need that many references, which interrupt the dramatic flow rather than enhance the story. But that's the only ground for faulting the writer-director in this most welcome movie that speaks to an important aspect of our lives. An IDP Distribution release.
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