The Innocent review: A zany, heightened heist farce

If you want a chaotic, heightened heist movie brimming with hijinks, shenanigans and antics, The Innocent is your jam.

The Innocent is in cinemas now. Picture: Palace Films

If chaos is what you want, chaos is what The Innocent delivers.

French actor and filmmaker Louis Garrel’s fourth feature as director and star, The Innocent is a wild heist, romance and family comedy all rolled into one discombobulating bundle.

And that’s not discombobulating in a bad sense. Unpredictable and untamed, The Innocent keeps you off-kilter, and its escalating antics always entertain.

There’s something comforting about a movie that’s kind of stressful. At some point, you have to stop trying to keep up or guess what’s happening and just go with it. When you get to that inflection point, when you surrender, it becomes a much more fun ride.

Sylvie (Anouk Grinberg) is a drama teacher at the prison where Michel (Roschdy Zem) is locked up. Head over heels, Sylvie marries Michel in a jailhouse wedding where her son Abel (Garrel) scowls through the proceedings.

The Innocent is a heist caper. Picture: Palace Films

Abel has been here before – his mother has a penchant for the bad boys, and his earlier alarm when she tells him she’s met someone sets the audience up for expectations of hijinks.

When Michel is released, Abel tails him, convinced that the ex-con hasn’t given up his wily ways. When Abel discovers that Michel is indeed up to something, he is somehow roped into being part of the harebrained scheme involving the heist of Iranian caviar.

It’s agreed Abel and his friend and colleague Clemence (Noemie Merlant) will act as distractions while the theft goes down. Does everything go as planned? Does it ever?

The Innocent is a lot of set-up before the heist itself in the final act but even without the caper, Garrel keeps the energy high. The characters are all the biggest versions of themselves but avoids tipping too far into caricature territory. It works within the genre and the rowdy movie Garrel is making.

Noemie Merlant won a Cesar Award for her performance. Picture: Palace Films

Merlant’s Clemence, in particular, is unleashed, a woman as loose in spirit as Merlant’s most well-known role outside of France, Portrait of a Lady on Fire’s Marianne, is controlled. Seeing Merlant in an extravagant role that’s almost all id is a delight.

The scenes in which she and Garrel’s characters are acting as feuding lovers are the film’s highlight. Not for nothing, Merlant won the French version of the Oscars, the Cesar, for her performance.

There’s a rhythm to The Innocent’s chaos, a slapstick spark that propels it forward. It’s essential to why the movie works because if you were following it too closely without it, the outlandish plot and the inconceivable choices of its characters would prove too much.

But with its zany energy and its amusing buffoonery, The Innocent is acquitted of its worst sins.

Rating: 3/5

The Innocent is in cinemas now