I don’t get it.
When I watched the film, I had no idea The Innocents was considered some masterpiece of British cinema. I’m actually rather surprised by the acclaim. Similarly, I’m shocked Deborah Kerr considered her performance in this film her best. It’s not a bad performance by any means; the plotting constrains it a great deal. I guess considering those constraints it’s a good performance. I was much more impressed with Megs Jenkins’s performance, seeing as how it was, well, unconstrained.
Perhaps some of my confusion is over a forty-year-old Kerr playing a twenty-year-old. I thought she was supposed to be playing a forty-year-old. I guess I can see it being different if her character is supposed to be twenty. Makes a backstory a lot less important (her character has no backstory, one of the major problems if you’re watching it with her being forty–and her age is never mentioned, so I don’t see as how it’s my fault).
Technically, it’s a good film. Freddie Francis had a lot of difficult shots to do in the dark and, while they aren’t the most successful things in the world (it’s not like Gregg Toland’s shooting this one), it’s a fine attempt. Clayton does get some really disturbing compositions in, but it’s never exactly scary. The film’s got two ways to go, either of them could be scary, but Clayton purposely ignores these options, so as to make the film… atmospheric without frightening.
Eh.
★½
CREDITS
Produced and directed by Jack Clayton; screenplay by William Archibald and Truman Capote, with additional scenes and dialogue by John Mortimer, based on a novel by Henry James; director of photography, Freddie Francis; edited by Jim Clark; music by Georges Auric; released by 20th Century Fox.
Starring Deborah Kerr (Miss Giddens), Peter Wyngarde (Peter Quint), Megs Jenkins (Mrs. Grose), Michael Redgrave (The Uncle), Martin Stephens (Miles), Pamela Franklin (Flora), Clytie Jessop (Miss Jessel) and Isla Cameron (Anna).
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