The Age of Innocence
Director: Martin Scorsese
Year Released: 1993
Rating: 2.0
Study of repression and ethics in old time New York, when people had little to do - it seems - but gossip about each other. Daniel Day-Lewis, who is engaged to the virginal but terminally vapid Winona Ryder secretly lusts after an elusive Michelle Pfeiffer but because of the mores of the day he can't take it farther. Has a calm elegance about it, but quietly judging (like Day-Lewis' character does) the offensively bourgeois characters and their charmed lives becomes tedious after a while; once you digest the film's point about a 'love that could never be,' it becomes the sum of its wardrobe and Michael Ballhaus' exquisite photography. It's never entirely clear what the appeal of Michelle Pfeiffer's character is - aside from her largely unproven 'reputation' - although Day-Lewis appears convinced the day begins and ends with her.
