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The Innocents
The Innocents
	Film poster
Norwegian	De uskyldige
Directed by	Eskil Vogt
Written by	Eskil Vogt
Produced by	Maria Ekerhovd
Starring	Rakel Lenora Fløttum; Alva Brynsmo Ramstad; Sam Ashraf; Mina Yasmin Bremseth Asheim; Ellen Dorrit Petersen; Morten Svartveit; Kadra Yusuf; Lisa Tønne;
Cinematography	Sturla Brandth Grøvlen
Edited by	Jens Christian Fodstad
Music by	Pessi Levanto
Production; companies	Zentropa Sweden; Film i Väst; Snowglobe; Svenska Filminstitutet; Norsk Filminstitutt; Eurimages; Protagonist Pictures; YLE;
Distributed by	IFC Midnight (United States)
Release dates	11 July 2021 (Cannes); 27 August 2021 (Norway);
Running time	118 minutes
Countries	Norway; Sweden; Finland
Languages	Norwegian; Swedish
Budget	€3,028,000; (est. $3.2 million); NOK29 million; ($3.4 million);
Box office	$236,419

The Innocents (Norwegian: De uskyldige) is a 2021 supernatural horror film written and directed by Eskil Vogt.^[5] The film premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at the 74th Cannes Film Festival on 11 July 2021.

Plot

Lonely young girl Ida and her older sister Anna have moved into an apartment with their parents. Anna has nonverbal autism, with Ida having to take responsibility for her. One day Ida meets Ben and the two strike up a friendship. Ben shows Ida that he is able to move small, light-weight objects with telekinesis.

Ida is asked to bring Anna to the playground and leaves her there to go off and play with Ben. They play football until a bully takes the ball. Ben picks up a cat he has seen in the woods and the two drop it from the top of the apartment complex's stairs. They find the cat alive but Ben kills it by crushing its skull with his foot after Ida tells him not to. When Ida leaves to find Anna she is not on the tire swing where Ida left her. Ida discovers Anna playing with Aisha, another child from the apartment complex. Aisha demonstrates that she is able to communicate with Anna through telepathy. It is later revealed that Anna can move objects with telekenesis but Ida discovers that the powers are strongest when Anna, Aisha, and Ben are together - and that Ida is the only child of the group without supernatural powers.

The children practice their powers and strengthen them and Anna begins to tentatively speak with Aisha's support. While sending mental messages, Ben becomes angry at the message "Ben is a turd" and Aisha's subsequent laughter so he knocks her over telekinetically but Anna intervenes. In the mental battle, a nearby log explodes and a large splinter punctures Anna's leg. At home, Ben is scolded by his mother, who has been abusing him and, using his telekinesis, he knocks her out with a pan and scalds her legs with boiling water. He tries to tend her injuries and when she later wakes up in pain, she begs him unsuccessfully to call for help. In a later scene, her body remains in the kitchen with her face covered with a towel. Meanwhile, with Aisha telekinetic help, Anna begins to be able to speak at home, to the immense joy of her parents.

Using his powers, Ben is able to control other people and influence them to do what he wants. While in a trance he directs a neighbor to kill his bully. After telling Ida of this power while playing in the woods, she encourages him to prove it by controlling her. He does so by making her climb onto a fridge; when the spell is broken, she says that she saw a snake which in reality was a tree branch. Ben says he only wanted her to climb onto the fridge - so seeing the snake is an image Ida's mind created. He shows Ida he can snap the large twig by thought alone and later repeats the action by snapping the leg of a boy on the playground. Aisha is drawn outside by this and tells Ben to stop. He throws a rock at her using his powers and then attacks her by seemingly forcing her throat to close up. Ida physically pushes Ben over and the spell is broken. He turns to Ida menacingly, but runs away when Anna comes towards them over the hill. Ben runs home and throws a tantrum in his empty apartment. Anna and Aisha resolve to stop Ben because they know that he will hurt them. But that night Anna and Ida are not allowed to leave the apartment, and Ben uses his powers to influence Aisha's mother to kill her with a knife. Anna loses the ability to speak in the wake of her friend Aisha's death.

A stranger follows Ida, Anna, and their father, suggesting Ben is using him to try and kill them. The stranger tries to enter the apartment complex after them, but is locked out. Later, Ida invites Ben out to play with a toy glider and they agree to go to a higher spot in order to launch it. At the highway overpass where the bully was killed, Ben climbs up to throw the glider and Ida moves forward to push him over. A woman on a bicycle yells at Ben to get down, but Ida pushes him over the wall. Ben falls onto a grassy area next to the road and appears to be in a trance. Ida runs off, but realizes she is under Ben's control when her surroundings become dark and she sees the snake again. She runs into the road and breaks her leg when she is hit by a car; Ben simultaneously wakes up screaming.

Back home, Ida is fearful Ben will use her mother in retaliation and, seeing her approach with a knife in her hand, Ida locks herself in the bathroom. Her mother leaves the apartment to go to the store and, when Ida leaves the bathroom, she finds that Anna has left the apartment also. Ida loses her crutch trying to get down the stairs and, as she screams out, her cast cracks open, showing that her leg has healed as she discovers that she also has telekinetic powers. Ida finds Anna standing by the edge of a large pond, facing Ben, standing on the other side. Through clenched fists, they affect their surroundings with telekinesis and Ben overpowers Anna, causing her to fall down. The battle between Anna and Ben intensifies - babies cry, dogs bark, waves form. Ben buckles the post of a metal swing but Ida and Anna hold hands, weakening Ben's powers and he collapses onto a tyre swing. Meanwhile some of the nearby children begin to watch from the playground and apartment balconies. Eventually there is a big burst of energy which causes things nearby to fall over; at the same time, Ben is killed by the burst and his body goes limp in the swing. The children who were watching go back to their games and homes.

Ida and Anna go back to the apartment and sit in silence. Their mother returns and Ida gives her a big hug, while Anna plays with her scribble-board. Anna then pauses, as if she is about to write something - suggesting she may regain the ability to communicate with Ida.

Cast

Rakel Lenora Fløttum as Ida
Alva Brynsmo Ramstad as Anna
Sam Ashraf as Ben
Mina Yasmin Bremseth Asheim as Aisha
Ellen Dorrit Petersen as Henriette
Morten Svartveit [no] as Ida and Anna's father
Kadra Yusuf as Aishas' mother
Lisa Tønne as Ben's mother

Release

The Innocents had its world premiere at the 74th Cannes Film Festival, in the Un Certain Regard section, on 11 July 2021.^[6]^[7]^[8] It later screened at Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas, in September 2021.^[8]^[9] Earlier that same month, the film's U.S. distribution rights were acquired by IFC Midnight,^[8] and it had a limited release on 13 May 2022.^[10] It was released on VOD by RLJ Entertainment on 18 October 2022.^[10]

Reception

Box office

The Innocents grossed $25,705 in the United States and Canada,^[10] and $206,366 in other territories for a worldwide total of $232,071,^[4] against a production budget of 3.2-3.4 million.^[2]^[3]

Critical response

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 96% of 112 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.6/10. The website's consensus reads: "The Innocents chillingly subverts the purity of youth in a powerfully acted thriller that lingers long after the credits roll."^[11] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 79 out of 100, based on 24 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.^[12]

Leslie Felperin of The Hollywood Reporter called the film "low-tech, high-tension", writing that "The lonely, uncanny and sometimes unthinkingly violent world of childhood is explored with chilling candor and exceptional skill".^[13] Jessica Kiang of Variety praised the performances of the child actors as well as the film's atmosphere, calling the film "both a satisfying genre exercise and a minute observation of the process by which young children acquire morality."^[14] Sight & Sound's Anton Bitel wrote that the film "uses its genre frame to show the connectedness, curiosity and cruelty of its young characters, and also asks whether the inevitable loss of innocence at this age is a slate that can ever simply be cleaned."^[15]