Critics reviews

At times Fontaine can't help but push the narrative further toward middlebrow melodrama, especially in the final act. But her pragmatic view of post-war life remains grounded in sacrifices great and small, brave acts of humanity that can sometimes go unnoticed while living in a place defined by pain.

With an austere but painterly palette, DP Caroline Champetier subtly captures the frost-bound landscape and figures and faces of the nuns. The Innocents observes the women's struggles with a somber reserve.

The actors bring emotional authenticity to the aftermath of trauma, but despite that and the handsome cinematography, there is also a persistent phoniness. It is based on a true story, but Fontaine can't resist the desire to bend catastrophe to a slightly more pleasing shape.

Fontaine and veteran screenwriter Pascal Bonitzer have written a methodical script in which nothing is accidental; events are signaled by the slightest, most delicate images... Its ambiguity is appropriate for a film set at the end of a world war, but at the beginning of another: the Cold War. The Innocents is that rare picture that captures the weight of history without losing sight of the individuals who live it.

It wants to ask whether and how it's possible to go on believing in God after being not just violated but, in a sense, mocked (by the permanent evidence of lost chastity that a baby entails). Screenwriters Sabrina B. Karine and Alice Vial never quite manage to articulate that question in a compelling way, however, and director Anne Fontaine, whose previous films are mostly either trifles or outright ridiculous, isn't up to the challenge of visually representing an inner void.

Even if The Innocents ends neatly, perforce inspirationally, at least on the strength of its actors, it makes an effective point: it isn't the women who ought to be ashamed here.

While Fontaine does take advantage of the ways that the costuming of nuns lends itself to striking contrasts against landscape vistas, she's more interested in retrieving a historical account than pleasing the eye or tugging at our heartstrings. Fontaine's film is all gloom and doom from beginning to end not because of the horrors a single character we identify with suffers, but because of the scale of horror impinged upon an entire community.

This handsome drama, both moving and important, features excellent performances across the board, most notably by Lou de Laâge as Mathilde (only a fiercely committed Rebecca Hall as the titular, also true-life character in Antonio Campos's outstanding, surprisingly unrewarded US Dramatic Competition entry Christine, rivaled her in the sheer assurance of carrying a film) and Vincent Macaigne as Mathilde's love interest, a Jewish doctor who also provides the story with a touch of lightheartedness.

Director Anne Fontaine channels a Bergman touch in her effective use of space between her actors. Characters in the convent are so carefully placed in front of the camera that it gives a sense of uneasy stillness and intensity... "Agnus Dei" is a lovely ode to healing through solidarity.