The Innocents (2021 film)

The Innocents (De uskyldige) is a 2021 supernatural horror film written and directed by Eskil Vogt. The film premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at the 74th Cannes Film Festival on 11 July 2021.

Plot
Lonely young girl Ida and her older sister Anna have moved into an apartment with their parents. Anna has nonverbal autism, with Ida having to take responsibility for her. One day Ida meets Ben and the two strike up a friendship. Ben shows Ida that he is able to move small, light-weight objects with telekinesis.

Ida is asked to bring Anna to the playground and leaves her there to go off and play with Ben. They play football until a bully takes the ball. Ben picks up a cat he has seen in the woods and the two drop it from the top of the apartment complex's stairs. They find the cat alive but Ben kills it by crushing its skull with his foot. When Ida leaves to find Anna she is not on the tire swing where Ida left her. Ida discovers Anna playing with Aisha, another child from the apartment complex. Aisha demonstrates that she is able to communicate with Anna through telepathy. It is later revealed that Anna can move objects with telekenesis but Ida discovers that the powers are strongest when the three children are together - and that she is the only child of the group without supernatural powers.

The children practice their powers and strengthen them and Anna begins to speak words verbally. While sending mental messages, Ben becomes angry at the message "Ben is a turd" and Aisha's subsequent laughter. He knocks Aisha over telekinetically and Anna intervenes. In the mental battle, Anna is injured by a piece of wood lodged in her leg. At home, Ben is scolded by his mother and knocks her out with a pan using his powers. She later wakes up and tells him to call for help. In a later scene, her body remains in the kitchen with her face covered with a towel.

Using his powers, Ben is able to "fetch" other people and influence them to do what he wants. While in a trance he directs a neighbor to kill his bully. After telling Ida of this power while playing in the woods, she encourages him to prove it by controlling her. He does so by making her climb onto a fridge; when the spell is broken, she says that she saw a snake which in reality was a tree branch. Ben says he only wanted her to climb onto the fridge - so seeing the snake is an image Ida's mind created. He shows Ida he can snap the large twig - and later snaps the leg of a child on the playground. Aisha is drawn outside by this and tells Ben to stop. He throws a rock at her using his powers and then attacks her by seemingly forcing her throat to close up. Ida physically pushes Ben over and the spell is broken. Anna and Aisha resolve to stop Ben because they know that he will hurt them. But that night Ben uses his powers to influence Aisha's mother to kill her with a knife.

A stranger follows Ida, Anna, and their father, suggesting Ben is using him to try and kill them. The stranger tries to enter the apartment complex after them, but is locked out. Later, Ida invites Ben out to play with a toy glider and they agree to go to a higher spot in order to launch it. At the highway overpass where the bully was killed, Ben climbs up to throw the glider and Ida moves forward to push him over. A woman on a bicycle yells at Ben to get down, but Ida pushes him over the wall. Ben falls onto a grassy area next to the road and appears to be in a trance. Ida runs off, but realizes she is under Ben's control when her surroundings become dark and she sees the snake again. She runs into the road and breaks her leg when she is hit by a car; Ben simultaneously wakes up screaming.

Back home, Ida is fearful Ben will use her mother in retaliation, so locks herself in the bathroom. Her mother leaves the apartment to go to the store. When Ida leaves the bathroom, Anna is also gone. Anna has gone outside, where her and Ben face each other across a large pond. They affect their surroundings with telekinesis and Ben overpowers Anna, causing her to fall down. Ida loses her crutch trying to get down the stairs. She screams out and explodes her cast, discovering she also has telekinesis. The battle between Anna and Ben intensifies - babies cry, dogs bark, waves form. Ida joins Anna while some of the nearby children begin to watch from the playground and apartment balconies. Anna and Ida hold hands and Ben becomes visibly weak. A metal swing set buckles and Ben sits into the tire swing. Eventually there is a big burst of energy which causes things nearby to fall over; at the same time, Ben is killed by the burst and his body goes limp in the swing. The children who were watching go back to their games and homes.

Ida and Anna go back to the apartment. Their mother returns and Ida gives her a big hug, while Anna plays with her scribble-board. Anna then pauses, as if she is about to write something - suggesting she and Ida are able to control her autism.

Cast

 * Rakel Lenora Fløttum as Ida
 * Alva Brynsmo Ramstad as Anna
 * Sam Ashraf as Ben
 * Mina Yasmin Bremseth Asheim as Aisha
 * Ellen Dorrit Petersen as Henriette
 * as Ida and Anna's father
 * Kadra Yusuf as Aishas' mother
 * Lisa Tønne as Ben's mother

Release
The Innocents had its world premiere at the 74th Cannes Film Festival, in the Un Certain Regard section, on 11 July 2021. It later screened at Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas, in September 2021. Earlier that same month, the film's U.S. distribution rights were acquired by IFC Midnight, and it had a limited release on 13 May 2022. It was released on VOD by RLJ Entertainment on 18 October 2022.

Box office
The Innocents grossed $25,705 in the United States and Canada, and $206,366 in other territories for a worldwide total of $232,071, against a production budget of 3.2-3.4 million.

Critical response
Leslie Felperin of The Hollywood Reporter called the film "low-tech, high-tension", writing that "The lonely, uncanny and sometimes unthinkingly violent world of childhood is explored with chilling candor and exceptional skill". Jessica Kiang of Variety praised the performances of the child actors as well as the film's atmosphere, calling the film "both a satisfying genre exercise and a minute observation of the process by which young children acquire morality." Sight & Sound's Anton Bitel wrote that the film "uses its genre frame to show the connectedness, curiosity and cruelty of its young characters, and also asks whether the inevitable loss of innocence at this age is a slate that can ever simply be cleaned."