The Innocent (2001) (TV)

User Rating:

5.5/10   

Director:

Sarah Harding

Writers:

Stephen Mallatratt (screenplay)
Jan McVerry (writer)

Release Date:

7 January 2001 (UK)

Genre:

Drama

Plot Keywords:

Best Friend | Husband Wife Relationship | Rape | Marriage | Law

Cast

Paul Rhys	...	David Pastorov
Caroline Quentin	...	Beth Pastorov
Clare Holman	...	Alison Huntley
Peter O'Brien	...	Paul Huntley
Madeleine Elgin	...	Annie Huntley
Michael Cochrane	...	Harold Haig
Ben Miles	...	Brian Percival
David Fleeshman	...	Gareth Lloyd
Nicholas Fry	...	Simon Lang
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Ann Aris	...	Ellen
Nathaniel Burrage-Light	...	Oliver Pastorov
Joe Chadwin	...	Tom Huntley
Susan Cookson	...	DC Morgan
Madeleine Egan	...	Annie Huntley
John Griffin	...	Maurice Horovitch
Terence Harvey	...	Dodds Trial Judge
Randal Herley	...	Judge Alston
Sarah Kirkman	...	Mrs. Farnell
Eleanor Lloyd-Davies	...	Scarlett Pastorov
Jack Lloyd-Davies	...	Luke Pastorov
Terence Mann	...	Reporter #2
Dale Meeks	...	PC Oakes
Simon Molloy	...	Main Trial Judge
Carol Noakes	...	Reporter #1
Geoff Oldham	...	Frank
Caroline Pegg	...	Mrs. Dodds
Andrew Scarborough	...	Mark Latimer
Caroline Sugden	...	Carrie

Runtime:

UK:180 min (including commercials) (2 parts)

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

Australia:M (cable rating) | Australia:PG

Company:

Yorkshire Television (YTV)

does all that is solid melt into air?

In movies or literature, let's face it, hard task is denouncing, say, the death penalty by using an innocent man or woman as a protagonist. Accordingly, it couldn't be easy to indict malehood for the behaviour of one man. This picture's title is quite ironic, and Paul, the defendant in a case of alleged rape, actually calls himself 'Everyman' - explicitly. I reckon that Allison, the plaintiff, Beth, the defendant's wife and Allison's best friend, as well as filmmaker Sarah Harding, do so - implicitly. But is sex indeed so abject an instinct? this film approaches a difficult subject, involving rape, the disinterested friendship between two women, the feminine freedom to flirt around and the masculine obligation to contain any socially-incorrect erotic compulsion. I don't think David and Allison would take ten years to have sex for the first and last time in their lives. I don't think Beth's unconscious mind would take 10 years to an insight that her conscious mind obviously perceive long time ago. And what about the friendship between A and B? I definitely don't think that all that is solid does melt into air so suddenly. the film isn't bad in its court-controversy sub-genre, but definitely lacks dramatic or philosophical substance.