The Inno­cent review – pleas­ant­ly quirky roman­tic caper

The word ​‘quirky’, flung wan­ton­ly at things peo­ple con­sid­er a bit hokey but inof­fen­sive, often seems like a veiled insult – gen­er­al­ly I flee from it, hiss­ing like a wronged cat, and use it with cau­tion. But The Inno­cent, appeal­ing­ly idio­syn­crat­ic, is quirky in the best and truest sense.

Direc­tor and lead Louis Garrel’s lat­est fea­ture fol­lows Abel, a hand­some but sulky wid­ow­er who works in an aquar­i­um, as he grows sus­pi­cious of his mum Sylvie’s fresh hus­band Michel (Roschdy Zem), one in a long line of crim­i­nals with lor­ry-back Rolex­es who she’s fall­en in love with whilst teach­ing the­atre in pris­ons. Assist­ed by his fish-wran­gling col­league and long-suf­fer­ing best mate Clé­mence (Noémie Mer­lant), Abel attempts to inves­ti­gate what dodgy activ­i­ties Michel has got­ten involved in to fund the flower shop he’s bought for his new bride to run. Abel reluc­tant­ly gets roped into the shady action, and starts to shed his fud­dy-dud­di­ness in the process.

The melo­dram­e­dy mad­ness of the plot (prison nup­tials?!? Caviar heist?!? Aquar­i­um sex scene?!?) which would oth­er­wise be too much is made sleek by lived-in per­for­mances and good pace. Gar­rel is endear­ing­ly surly, con­vey­ing but not over­play­ing Abel’s grief and guilt after los­ing his wife in a car acci­dent, whilst Mer­lant flex­es her comedic mus­cles as bub­bly love-inter­est Clé­mence. Anouk Grin­berg plays Sylvie as soft­ly-spo­ken and del­i­cate­ly nuts with­out being irri­tat­ing­ly ditzy, except in Abel’s eyes. Zem’s Michel slow­ly grows on you as he does on Abel. The evo­lu­tion of the crime-tinged step­fa­ther-step­son rela­tion­ship from one of sus­pi­cion, to col­lab­o­ra­tion, to affec­tion is shown light­ly but con­vinc­ing­ly (one scene in which Michel attempts to teach Abel sal­sa whilst they paint walls is par­tic­u­lar­ly win­ning) – and neat­ly par­al­lels Abel’s increas­ing capac­i­ty for warmth with Cleménce.

The film’s light­ing is strik­ing – kudos to gaffer Julien Gal­lois. It pre­dom­i­nant­ly exhibits the washed out den­im tones of win­tery Lyon, the wob­bly blues of the aquar­i­um and the weak neon of late night petrol sta­tion din­ers, but fre­quent­ly fea­tures one bright flash of colour, often in the form of Clémence’s cloth­ing. Visu­al­ly beguil­ing, this is also an effec­tive way of sig­ni­fy­ing her as the real hero, a hot mess bea­con of bore­dom-refusal and Abel’s sal­va­tion from being a grumpy git.

The Inno­cent might have been a more nuanced film had it devel­oped the pla­ton­ic friend­ship between the two leads rather than accel­er­at­ing the growth of romance between them, but their chem­istry is fun (see; aquar­i­um sex) and sits har­mo­nious­ly with­in the rest of the sto­ry, so no real com­plaints there. Alto­geth­er, the Inno­cent is a rel­a­tive­ly low stakes sto­ry of ordi­nary peo­ple doing humbly ridicu­lous if fair­ly ille­gal things – and all the more charm­ing for it.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

By becom­ing a mem­ber you can sup­port our inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ism and receive exclu­sive essays, prints, week­ly film rec­om­men­da­tions and more.