The Innocents (2018)

 

Poor Start hurts the Intriguing The Innocents

by Kristin Battestella

The 2018 Netflix international production The Innocents opens the eight episode science fiction drama with perilous chases, cliff side pleas, and doppelgangers in “The Start of Us.” Multi lingual interrogations and so called Sanctum Norway communes for women in need of a special treatment create ominous while transformations, triggers, secrets, and agoraphobia invoke fear. Positive therapies go awry thanks to nightmares, tests, and sedatives while parents must make major decisions to keep the family safe. Roadside suspense, scary strangers, injections, and would be abductions lead to surprises and revelations in “Keep Calm, Come to No Harm.” Frantic body swaps and unknown medical conditions are no match for the titular mantras amid school troubles, police inquiries, and escalating experiments. Past fears raise the tension and pleas to stop the tests, but convulsions and pursuits lead to more shape shifting. The ladies must remember who they are to come back from each transformation as they wonder what terrible mothers they are and why they have this pain. “Bubblegum & Bleach” adds paranoia and jealously – relatives and cops aren't on the same page. Unfortunately, in the first three episodes of The Innocents, the suspicious Norway science takes a backseat to teen lipstick, love letters, and runaway dreams. Voiceovers lay on the lovey dovey when we could have met the romance in media res upon escape. Brief, fast moving, intercut scenes jumping from story to story don't let any build up get off the ground as back and forth emotions change without explanation. Adults are treated as foolish, dismissing information while the lovebirds don't immediately search a man's belongings even after he shows them a message about her mother's whereabouts. Details are withheld for contrived revelations quickly forgotten as the carefree teens run through the park holding hands. Despite dangerous roads and car accidents, the protagonists act too young to drive, much less rent hotel rooms. Seeing them half dressed and making out is weird, and for such an in love couple, sex doesn't initially even occur to them until drug hostels and dangerous influences. Neon lights, body glitter, and back room whips are downright ridiculous, and it's extremely tempting to fast forward through the overlong clubbing. It's not entertaining, nay it's terribly frustrating to see more intriguing characters held back so the least interesting youths can bungle into the conclusions viewers already know.

Thankfully, the fourth episode “Deborah” finally gets to the sci-fi backstory with flashbacks to disbelieving bar meetings and patients afraid of touching deemed paranoid schizophrenics. The shape shifting trauma can be controlled, but morphs into a pregnant nurse are disturbing. Unrequited feelings and mixing business with pleasure acerbate the identity questions as positive sessions lead to choices. Instead of a woman being defined by her man or as a mother, maybe she can have her own life. The performances and confrontations show what The Innocents can do when focused on the meatiest material, and one might even skip the first three episodes and begin here. Love can keep you calm or memories of losing it can be your trigger in “Passionate Amateur” as a viral video of a shifting encounter leads to our teens trusting anonymous strangers they meet on the internet. However, family investigations and abusing police jurisdiction provide better help or hindrance and tears over the inability to protect those that are different. Rare mixings of memories and mental questions about the shifting make for provocative complications, and “Not the Only Freak in Town” offers abusive connotations, couples divided, and injured loved ones. Characters pair up and demand answers as detectives consider the preposterous possibilities and women keep secrets from each other. Again, this is one of the better hours because the teen stories take a backseat to three special women around a campfire waxing on who they loved and never told, the men they were supposed to love and didn't, and making safe choices or taking a crazy midnight swim. They aren't monsters but there's no cure – and a warning from a rogue shifter suggests this Sanctum may not be what it seems. Genetic specifics and Norway suspicion is where The Innocents should have been all along, and the taut journey to this isolated island at the end of the world means there's nowhere to run. “Will You Take Me Too?” details the physiological reaction to emotional pressure and evolving shift experiences, but foolish arguments lead to water perils and boat mishaps. How do you save someone from drowning when you can't touch them? Switches among too many people leave some comatose, and men fight about past encounters that ruined more than one family. Idyllic reunions are too good to be true thanks to apologies, abandonment, and doing wrong for the right reasons. Just because you can get the answers you want doesn't mean you should. Community disruptions and compelling character pain fall back on entitled teen sappiness when The Innocents was going so well without it, but players say one thing and do another for “Everything. Anything.” Parents can't protect their children, and the past is distorted with failing memories, violence, and forced shifts. This therapy doesn't hold up under scrutiny, and those who object are unwelcome amid gunshots and excellent intensity as previous commune residents return. The Innocents is superb when it sticks with this not so perfect hamlet and its fantastical women who must face the consequences of their actions whether they are absolved in all the shifting or not. Conflicts between strong women's bonds and rival leeching men escalate toward excellent confrontations, extreme treatments, sacrifices, and betrayals.

Sorcha Groundsell's (Far from the Apple Tree) sheltered sixteen year old June McDaniel doesn't want to move away with her strict dad, and for all the in love hype, one wonders if she's only using her boyfriend Harry to escape. She puts a girl in a coma before she takes this shifting seriously yet still takes too long to deduce what's happening, toiling around London hostels for drinks, parties, and girl kisses. She's easily manipulated, a wishy washy follower bending to her environs without the shifting – going round and round on the sex and drug shifting metaphors while her increasingly annoying bad experiences ultimately take advantage of Harry. June's selfishness makes her very unlikable; she ignores the commune's delicate balance, sneaks around to get what she wants, and foolishly puts her mother Elena at risk. She never gets a clue despite every opportunity to learn, and Percelle Ascott (Wizards vs Aliens) as Harry Polk gives up everything because he's in love with June. He wants to call the police or return home, but June doesn't care if he is completely freaked and traumatized because he continually professes his love. Harry calls his mother and goes on job interviews, sticking with June even if he objects to her excitement at swapping lives. She needs him to keep herself calm, but June ignores when Harry's skeptical of meeting shifters on the internet. She dismisses his theories on other shifters using people, and we're glad when he tells her to stop being a poser, think for herself, and decide what she wants. Nonetheless, one warning phone call about Sanctum and he's in pursuit, loving her at the expense of himself. The metaphors are spot on when Harry ends up physically trapped, because he is wasting his life on being consumed by June. The Innocents' finale isn't an unfortunate cliffhanger but rather the inevitable conclusion. Mother Laura Birn (A Walk Among the Tombstones) likewise worries for June and struggles with her shifting therapy. Elena thinks this is not a gift but a curse. She fears she'll go mad if she recalls her past trauma, and we should have seen more of her story beyond brief flashbacks and arguments. She's not ready to meet June when she arrives at Sanctum, regretting her need to put herself first and afraid of what kind of bad mother she must be. Unfortunately, June rushes Elena, intruding on memories and revelations that aren't her business – ignoring her mother's warnings that love will only cause pain.

Doctor Guy Pearce (Lockout) says he's with a patient at every step, but Ben Halvorson has a checklist and won't let anything jeopardizing his work. He seems sensitive, helpful, even loving – Ben doesn't think he is the egotistical male villain – but he's clearly using these women to achieve his own goals. Ben will stay by his wife's bedside as needed but flies to London to retrieve June and tricks another cured patient ready to leave into staying by using her trigger phrase. He's enthralled by June and Elena's shifting capabilities and kicks other men out of Sanctum when not repeatedly selling his motivational what we do here is good speeches. Halvorson has some great revelations in last two episodes, and The Innocents should have delved into his duplicity more. Ingunn Beate Oyen's (Witch Hunt) Runa loves Ben and their work and encourages the other women despite their therapy fears, but her own early dementia and drinking is getting worse. Runa's proof the re-centering program works, but she's totally dependent on Ben and the illness puts her shifting at risk. She doesn't trust herself and grows jealous, angry, and afraid Elena and June will replace her. The best scenes in The Innocents are between Pearce and Oyen – Runa hides her condition and can't be consoled physically but won't spend her remaining time as herself crying, either. Unfortunately, the audience doesn't know what to make of Johannes Haukur Johannesson (Cursed) and his creepy contortions. Steinar's heartfelt backstory, emotional conversations, and tender moments conflict with the would be menacing chases and ominous pursuits, and the back and forth does the character a disservice. Sam Hazeldine (Prime Suspect) as John McDaniel also has his reasons for protecting his children yet they're angry at him for his regimented ways. John writes a humble birthday card to his daughter and facilities an isolated annex for his agoraphobic son Arthur Hughes (Jonesy), but he's still treated like the bad guy. John almost gives up because whatever he does is considered wrong, and upon hiking to the Sanctum, he even apologizes to June and that's still not good enough. Nadine Marshall's (The Smoking Room) Detective Christine Polk struggles to balance her past and personal ties while investigating the McDaniel case, too. She independently puts together previous crimes, comas, and how her husband Philip Wright (EastEnders) also became a victim. Christine has the hospital video and mismatched reflections photos, but her assistance and resources are treated as unimportant until required. Of course, the irony is that the entire adult ensemble was so deserving of the show's focus that we wonder if the teen connections were needed at all.

Fortunately, great forests, lovely mountains, and beautiful rivers set The Innocents apart. Compared to other genre Netflix shows that all seem to use the same dark house sets, bright location filming and aerial views are calm and quaint. In spite of the shady implications and rogue medicine, these plague days we wouldn't mind living in this pretty, isolated commune! Big monitors, slides, and record players make for a primitive set up, but the older tapes, phones, and technology accent the unpolished rural. Mirrors, double glass overlays, and reverse camera angles talking to one's reflections create visual duplicity while ironic classical music sets off the cruel experimentation. The soon to be dated hip tunes, unfortunately, are loud, obnoxious, and intrusive. The skipping strobe and auto tune shrill made me think there was something wrong with the sound or the streaming! Even if the soundtrack is to your taste, the music montages are ridiculously overused. The Innocents has unnecessary, annoying music interludes sometimes every five minutes – precious time that could have been about character development not ~aesthetics. I must however give props to the ice hockey game on at the Norwegian bar! The Innocents starts slow yet busy with frustrating, uneven storytelling. More interesting adult plots take a backseat to typical teen angst. Thankfully, the second half moves much faster, and the series is best when it drops the dippy teen experience for the real world drama that happens to have suspicious science fiction afoot. This is a very neat concept, and The Innocents had potential for greatness, but it should have been four episodes or a taut movie. It's easy to marathon the superior back end of The Innocents if you hang in for that long, but provocative ideas about women's roles and identities are trapped in an eye rolling juvenile structure that's so damn easy to quit on at the forefront.