The Loss of Sexual Innocence, directed by Mike Figgis, is a film that is so confusing, dull, and poorly made that I am not sure how it got funding. Hopefully, this review will inform any unsuspecting person from wasting their time on it.
The movie is trying to pass itself off as art is almost impossible to believe. Figgis (best known for his highly acclaimed film Leaving Las Vegas) interweaves many small stories featuring Nic (John Cowey at age five, George Moktar at age twelve, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers at age sixteen, and Julian Sands at adult age), the film's lead character, with the biblical story of Adam (Femi Ogumbanjo) and Eve's (Hanne Klintoe) descent from the Garden of Eden. There is no apparent rhyme or meaning to the order in which these tales are assembled, nor are there any proper relations between them other than a shared lack of innocence, which is not always of a sexual nature.
The film's similarity to many silent films from the early 1900s, opting for a lovely musical score instead of dialogue, makes the storyline much more challenging to understand. The little speech in this film is unimportant to the storyline, or so you think because the background music almost wholly drowns it out.
"Huh?" asks the viewer after seeing The Loss of Sexual Innocence. Not only is the spectator thoroughly disillusioned, but films like this are continuously blurring the distinction between art and garbage. "The Loss of Artistic Innocence" would have been a more appropriate title.
