The Age of Innocence
Composite Score: 85.87
Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer, Winona Ryder, Richard E. Grant, Alec McCowen, Stuart Wilson, Miriam Margolyes, Michael Gough, Jonathan Pryce, and Joanne Woodward
Director: Martin Scorsese
Writers: Jay Cocks and Martin Scorsese
Genres: Drama, Romance, Period Piece
MPAA Rating: PG for thematic elements and some mild language
Box Office: $32.26 million worldwide
Why should you Watch This Film?
The Age of Innocence is Martin Scorsese’s film adaptation of Edith Wharton’s novel of the same name about late-19th century New York high society and the inner workings of its families and machinations. The tale focuses on Newland Archer, a young lawyer played by Daniel Day-Lewis, who is engaged to May Welland (Winona Rider), the granddaughter of New York’s “dowager empress” Mrs. Mingott (Miriam Margolyes), whose cousin Ellen Olenska (Michelle Pfeiffer) has just returned from Europe, separated from her debaucherous husband Count Olenska and seemingly ready to reinsert herself into New York high society. The love triangle between Newland, May, and Ellen forms the primary crux of the film’s plot and conflict, with all of them grappling with keeping up appearances and maintaining the status quo of their social statuses. It received Oscar nominations for Best Set Decoration, Best Original Score, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actress for Ryder along with a win for Best Costume Design. Additionally, the film has received much recognition for the three central performances and for the refreshing nature of Scorsese’s lighter, but still excellent, turn in the director’s seat.
Why shouldn’t you Watch This Film?
Like the novel upon which it’s based, The Age of Innocence moves slowly from start to finish, building tension slowly and strolling toward a conclusion that may or may not be fully satisfying. As such, not everyone is going to love this film, particularly fans of Scorsese’s higher-paced and more violently moving films. Luckily, this film came before his win for Best Director (though his loss to Kevin Costner at the 63rd Academy Awards had already happened), and it clocks in at a reasonable runtime of two hours and thirteen minutes. It’s long, but not overlong, and full of visually striking period sets, costumes, and characters and a story that might be compelling depending on the audience. While it’s by no means a bad or even below average film, its subdued pace and the subtext piled on implication piled on subtext contained in its story can make it a difficult film to engage with, so it might not be everyone’s cup of tea.
So wait, why should you Watch This Film?
In anything Martin Scorsese makes, he pours his whole self into the work, but that’s particularly easy to sense in his films about New York. His love of the city, its culture, its history, and the ways it has shifted and stayed the same over the years remains apparent every time he gets to revisit the Big Apple in his films. In The Age of Innocence, his focus is fixed on the lost “high society” of New York in the Gilded Age, aided in large part by Wharton’s focus on that absence when she published her novel in the aftermath of World War I. Ultimately, what he gives the audience in this rumination on a lost, if troubled, past is his most opulent (besides maybe Casino) and most reserved film at the same time. Every aspect of the production design and cinematography is meant to convey the inordinate wealth of its subjects along with their complete devotion to never being frank or open about anything at all. The end result is a beautifully sequenced film, full of visually striking mansions, balls, and gardens and characters with very little surface but miles of depth.
In order to make the film work, the three central actors have to be able to convey their character’s complexities well without breaking character or the rigidity of the society in which they exist. It’s a difficult ask for any cast, but Daniel Day-Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Winona Ryder were apparently more than up to it. As the film’s protagonist Day-Lewis has to deal with the most uncharacteristic breaks in demeanor, and his performance holds its own as the central figure, but the need to have someone saying what’s actually going on to keep the audience in the loop stifles it a bit. It’s still a strong, attractive, and heartfelt performance, particularly in the film’s final act, but it’s got nothing on the two ladies playing opposite him. Pfeiffer gives one of the best performances of her career as the disgraced Countess Olenska, combining longing, hurt, love, loyalty, sensuality, and self-assuredness into a single gorgeous flame of a woman, playing equal parts the temptress and voice of reason to Day-Lewis’s Newland. Every scene she’s in becomes more compelling for having her in it, and I’m somewhat surprised that she missed out on all but a Golden Globe nomination that year. Ultimately, it was the most subtle performance of the three that drew the eye of the awards bodies that year, with Winona Ryder coming away with nominations at all the major awards for her quiet and girlish but utterly in-control portrayal of May. It’s one of those performances that suckers the audience even as it suckers the characters into believing that she’s simpler and more naïve than she really is, and that’s why she steals the show. Every time I rewatch this film now, knowing what I do about her character, I won’t be able to look at her the same way, and that’s a triumph of a performance if I’ve ever seen one.
A trio of performances with immense depth and a director dedicated to crafting a gorgeously compelling picture of 19th-century high society in New York make The Age of Innocence work wonderfully as a film and earn it a spot among the greats. Its slower pace and heavy subtlety make it a difficult film for fans of Scorsese’s louder works only, but those familiar with the rest of his filmography shouldn’t find themselves overly surprised with what he’s seeking to pull off here. You can currently stream this film for free with ads on the Roku channel or you can rent it on most other streaming services if you’d like to watch it in the near future.
