Summer is here, school is out, and like any 9-year-old girl, Ida wants to travel with her parents and have a fun vacation. However, her summer recreation time will be very different from what she envisioned. The little girl and her family have just moved house, so the priorities are set on fixing everything related to the move. But in addition, the strict care of her sister Anna, who suffers from autism spectrum disorder, makes it even more difficult for mom and dad to grant her wish to go to the airport, catch a flight and get away from the routine. So, full of resentment towards Anna, the protagonist chooses to take it out on her in truly cruel ways. More over the course of the movie innocent gamesIda will discover how far the perversity of people her age can go.
A world of magic and darkness
Regardless of the family drama, which is very much in the background, innocent games It has the particularity of being a thriller with supernatural elements. In the housing unit where Ida now lives —located in a wooded region east of the city of Oslo, Norway— she meets Ben, a mysterious boy who turns out to be her neighbor and from whom she will witness something unusual… He has psychic powers, as well as other infants in the area, according to the protagonist will discover as the film progresses.
In the eyes of the public, it will be inevitable to associate this story with the work of Stephen King; famous horror novelist whose Norwegian director Eskil Vogt He admits to having read a lot during his adolescence. From the author of books like Item and Fire Eyes, the tape takes that desire to portray children as the main pieces in a macabre world of magic and darkness; darkness that they have to fight, at the risk of being absorbed or destroyed.
Regarding Ida and Ben, accompanied by Anna and another lonely girl named Aisha, the discovery of the supernatural makes them spiritually related to Danny Torrance (The glow) and Open Stone (doctor sleep). But instead of evil coming from outside, innocent games it argues that vileness may already exist within those who in theory should be the heroes. Hence, telekinesis, telepathy or mind control are more resources at the service of an insatiable impulse to harm.
a painful growth
Two years ago, innocent games competed in the Un Certain Regard category at the 74th edition of the Cannes Film Festival. At the same time, the acclaimed dramatic comedy the worst person in the world contended for the Palme d’Or, this being a film co-written by Eskil Vogt himself. So despite the gender and age disparity of their respective characters, it’s no surprise that these two films boast a narrative about learning and personal growth; both, moreover, trespassing the limits of the coming of age traditional. In 2017, the screenwriter did the same after lending his pen to Thelma’s Curse; thriller where he already addressed the idea of terrifying psychic powers —in this case, of a university girl— that are detonated during a process of maturation and existential crisis.
With a focus on childhood, Vogt has expressed (via Vogue) than through innocent games he intended to make a kind of fable; one that delved into questions of morality and where adults were relegated. After all, it is common for children to discover the world through play and fantasy, apart from their parents. On the other hand, the film may overexceed itself in the level of indifference that the adults show in the face of the series of atrocities that begin to take place inside the unit. Especially, since at least the mothers of the protagonists do not really move away from the spotlight (as it happens, for example, in the universe of Let me in). Even her presence suggests an emotional and psychological richness that the script sadly decides not to explore.
child’s play
Evidently, innocent games It’s not the kind of movie where children endowed with superhuman abilities are summoned by Nick Fury to save the world. The lens is aimed, rather, at the naive fun that comes with those powers, slowly turning spooky in the hands of confused, lonely, and emotionally disturbed infants with a notion of right and wrong still forming.
The path to decline is slow. Several scenes emphasize how Ida, Ben and company explore their psychic abilities, which leads to very repetitive and episodic sequences; same that (if anything) contribute only crumbs to the plot and the narrative arc of the children. However, it is understandable that there is such parsimony in a tape that is in itself extremely contained. This could be reminiscent of M. Night Shyamalan’s cinema, where the narration of extraordinary events (such as the origin of a superhero or the beginning of an alien invasion) is concentrated in few characters and settings.
With unprepossessing but highly convincing special effects, innocent games It effectively shows that: a child’s game carried to its ultimate consequences by the supernatural factor; full of tension and shocking moments that, if not scaring the audience, would at least cause them deep pain. Even in the smallest, power corrupts.
Antonio G. Spindola I have very bad memory. Out of solidarity with my memories, I choose to lose myself too. Preferably in a movie theater.