Product Details

• Actors: Julia Blake, Charles 'Bud' Tingwell, Kristine Van Pellicom, Kenny Aernouts, Terry Norris
• Directors: Paul Cox
• Writers: Paul Cox
• Producers: Paul Cox, Mark Patterson, Willem Thijssen, William T. Marshall
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
• Language: English, French
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Sony Pictures
• VHS Release Date: December 10, 2002
• Run Time: 94 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00006SFMX
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #380,899 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars staying power, September 24, 2001

By A Customer

I wanted to see this movie since mid August when I first read a review that clued me in to the moral dilemna that Claire, an attractive woman in her 60's, would face. Her marriage has become a friendship, comfortable for her husband, and, we assume, also for her, until she receives the invitation to meet with her former lover from college days. The question every married person asks him/herself is:"What would I do in the same circumstances?" I was captivated from the beginning by the stunningly honest emotions beautifully portrayed by the three main characters. I did not care for the ending. When my husband asked me immediately after viewing the film,"Would you recommend it to your friends?", I replied,"Yes, but with the statement about my disappointment in the way the dilemna was resolved". However, upon arriving home, we talked intensely about the film, the substance and the messages in the story. I don't remember another film that has "got us talking" in the same way. The film has staying power. I will remember the honesty, the acting, the interesting techniques used to suggest the mental state of the characters. Like many good marriages, this film is not perfect, but very worth seeing and discussing with your partner.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Love is a Battlefield, September 8, 2001

By 

MICHAEL ACUNA (Southern California United States) - See all my reviews
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Paul Cox's "Innocence" is a shocking, daring film. Why? Because it dares to show a couple in their 70's in bed enjoying each other and re-experiencing a love that first bloomed fifty years earlier. Andreas (Charles Tingwell) and Claire (Julia Blake) had once been in love but because of family pressure Andreas deserts Claire for college and a subsequent career in music. Both Andreas and Claire marry others. As the film begins Andreas' wife is dead and Claire is in a loveless marriage to John (Terry Norris). Andreas writes a letter to Claire asking her out to lunch and almost immediately they both feel the re-awakening of their dormant love and passion. One thing interesting about their relationship is that they both feel no compulsion to lie about their affair to their families: "We're too old for lies,"
is what they both say. Andreas' daughter is very happy for her father but Claire's husband John is not at all happy. But the nature of John's "unhappiness" at first is more akin to losing a round of golf than a wife. He bascially has treated Claire like a housekeeper and companion. As Claire says: "You don't even raise your head when I come in the door." This is why Claire throws herself headfirst into this affair with Andreas with such exhilaration and abandonement. And it is genuinely thrilling to behold. Julia Blake as Claire gives an inspired performance as Claire.She is very much in the same league as Vanessa Redgrave who she resembles physically and tempermentally. Charles Tingwell as Andreas is overwhelmed by Claire's ardor but is jazzed nonetheless. Tingwell plays the notes of his role perfectly. Terry Norris plays John as a doddering old fool which, of course, he is. "Innocence" deals with some big issues: Love, Religion, Marriage and more importantly Aging. And, to his credit, most of the time Cox is right on with his obsevations. More importantly though, Cox has made us re-think the notion that all passion stops at 40 and reminds us once again that "Love is wasted on the Young." Slightly corny maybe, but provocative in the viewing. Bravo.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The beauties of aging, January 18, 2003

By 

Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Innocence (DVD)

INNOCENCE is sonata about love - first love, interrupted love, lost love, rekindled love. In a gentle manner the tale of a young couple falling in love is revealed in the opening sequences and then we meet that same couple decades later, after time, marriage to other people, family, and the world has smeared that tenuous prelude. The man learns his first love lives nearby, they meet, their love is renewed, and the woman must decide whether to follow her heart ( in her late sixties) or remain in a marriage without passion. Simple story, the details are best left out as they might destroy the impact of this lovely film. It is enough to say that the writer and director have presented a love story about people nearing seventy and have made that story as tender and erotic as if it were about youth. The cycle of life, the consequences of choices, and the rare vision of the dignity of the beauty of aging are of more importance here. In a time when the world population of Senior Citizens is rapidly expanding it is refreshing to come across a movie that makes aging not only OK, but actually a state to anticipate with a glow.