Ida (Rakel Lenora Fløttum) is unhappy in her new home, but things begin to change when she meets Ben (Sam Ashraf), a neighborhood boy with strange kinetic powers.  Meanwhile, her older sister Anna (Alva Brynsmo Ramstad), who is autistic, begins her own friendship with Aisha (Mina Yasmin Bremseth Asheim), a young girl who is able to communicate telepathically with Anna, and the four of them begin to experiment and test the limits of their newfound powers.  Things go awry, through a series of unfortunate accidents and heightened emotions, and what initially brought the four of them together will tear them apart.  

Eskil Vogt writes and directs The Innocents, a youth-focused thriller, though a film decidedly not intended for children.  Debuting at Cannes in 2021 where it was nominated Un Certain Regard, it was not until 2022 that the film found a wider audience through its release by IFC Midnight as a Shudder Exclusive.  Captured by Sturla Brandth Grøvlen’s camera and edited by Jens Christian Fodstad, the film is intriguingly disorienting as it plays with perspectives, not just in keeping the camera at a child’s eye level but as it flips, turns, and tilts that physical point of view throughout, constantly keep audiences just a little off kilter.  As for the characters, it is the latest in a long line of creepy kids, not dissimilar to David Yarovesky’s Brightburn (2019) which also highlights the trials of being different during childhood, but it does not have the baggage associated with plugging into the lore of Superman, so Vogt is free to go in his own direction for better or for worse in The Innocents. 

Those with a natural aversion to child actors, or who do not like seeing children engage in upsetting and violent activities, will want to avoid Vogt’s thriller.  By and large, though, the young core cast performs serviceably well, and they navigate the shifting dynamics of the friend group in a surprisingly accurate way, but at 117 minutes long, the narrative is too thin to support the run time and the kids do begin to appear a little bored or confused as they get lost in the meandering arcs.  Ultimately an ensemble piece, the film orbits around Ida and her relationship with the three others.  Fløttum does well as the ringleader of this newly formed gang as they follow the typical ebbs and flows of a getting the team together montage, but instead of a singular sequence, this is stretched to feature length.  The narrative problem with this is that The Innocents for much of the first hour feels like a prequel working towards an unknown end.  This is a different kind of feeling than the first act of a movie, which has to do a lot of similar work, but first acts are setting up stakes while prequels can wander a little more and dabble in world-building because there is already an end established within the larger narrative.  Here, Vogt spends a little too much time setting the stage without ever giving audiences a point of direction. 

World-building and hangout stories are not necessarily a bad thing, especially when the film follows a group of superpowered kids, but when half of the group are pretty rotten people to begin with, it becomes significantly less fun.  Kids being cruel is not new territory for film, but typically they are framed as the antagonists to more cherubic children, or possessed by some sort of demon to keep audiences at arm’s length from them with Tomas Alfredson’s adaptation of Let the Right One In (2008) being a shining example of this tactic. Vogt’s script, though, lumps the protagonists in with the villain of the film which is an interesting choice, but like much else in The Innocents, unfortunately, poorly executed.  For one, Ida is a bit of a brat, not only towards her parents but goading her sister, Anna, who is nonverbal and unable to express her pain.  Vogt’s handling of autism here adds some bitter taste, but thankfully his story is not as egregious as others have been in the past that equate illness to the supernatural.  Anna holds a key position in the story, but the script does not specifically “other” her any more than the rest of that gang which was refreshing to see even if it still feels a little troubling.   

And then there is Ben who is the textbook definition of a troubled kid; bullied on the playground, has few friends, a turbulent home life, and in his desperation to feel some kind of control he acts out violently culminating in an incredibly upsetting scene with a cat.  As the film’s goals begin to slowly come into focus, it is revealed that Ben will continue to test the limits of his powers until he fills the role of villain after lashing out and killing his mother (Lisa Tønne).  The effectiveness is bogged down a little by the story logic in that the kids cannot just communicate telepathically with one another, but can also transfer items to one another across space – as evidenced in the broken glass Ida places in Anna’s shoe but ends up in Aisha’s – and more than just communicating in silly phrases as part of a game, they can pass along emotions, feeling, and pain as well.  It is an interesting concept, yet too broadly defined to be able to appropriately track and quickly it becomes a mishmash of whatever the story needs for that moment they are capable of.  When anything is possible, it is hard to find investment in the characters. 

One thing the film makes clear, though, is that the children are stronger when they are together.  This poses an interesting dynamic as when they begin to confront Ben, they are also giving him more strength to use against them.  Thankfully, Vogt avoids turning this thriller into a story about the power of friendship and uses it instead to his advantage to force them to find new ways to work together.  For audiences who braved past the abuse of the cat, and the adult fatalities, it should be noted that not all of the children here will make it to the end credits – a startlingly dark turn, the daring of which is refreshing to see.  Somewhat upsetting choices are made as the narrative careens towards its endgame which all culminates in a scene that is both simple and powerful at once, but the choice helps establish the desperately needed stakes for the film, it is just a shame it takes so long to do so. 

Vogt’s film is constantly playing with interesting ideas and concepts that help to keep us engaged even while he takes his time to form his point.  With a strong core cast, though they are grating to watch through their actions, The Innocents still sits at an odd spot between genre fare and fable for the trials of childhood.  It seemingly wants to engage in conversation about the turbulence children can experience growing up, especially when they are different; Ida is new to the neighborhood, Aisha and Ben are both children of immigrants, and Anna is autistic, but it never really forms a true thesis as Laura Wandel does with Playground (2022). Expanded by, but conversely bogged down by, its incorporation of elements of genre, The Innocents clearly has something to say about checking in on children to make sure they are growing and adapting well to their surroundings, but Voght’s pen seems a little sloppier than usual here and the less nuanced approach to the story really holds it back from being the best version of itself.