_The Innocents_ taps into that boredom you’re faced when you were younger when there was no one to play with and you didn’t know what to do with yourself. The Ida character toys with doing darker things and being a curious tomboy that bites off more than she can chew on most occasions. And while it doesn’t execute everything to its fullest potential, _The Innocents_ is a gradual, unnerving swell of a thriller that takes its time crafting each superhuman element of its familiar yet expertly ominous approach to a film featuring kids with powers. It’s been a long time anything superpower related has felt this somber and spellbinding.

**Full review:** https://hubpages.com/entertainment/The-Innocents-2022-Review-A-Story-Driven-and-Tensely-Foreboding-Norwegian-Thriller

People discovering they have psychic powers, experimenting with it, growing stronger, then falling out and confronting each other. Known story, except this time it's with very young children.

It's actually funny because every little plot issue made to keep the story go on that would normally be very easily spotted and annoying (like "why the hell is this character acting like that, that's so stupid, of course there will be consequences") is washed away by "of course they're children". For instance, [spoiler]Aisha's death[/spoiler] was easily preventable, but they just weren't allowed to go out. [spoiler]Though why didn't she take precautions against her mother ? Ida did.[/spoiler]

The whole story takes place out of sight of adults, they're just accessories. So much that you're kinda wondering what they're doing. Children are out all the time, unsupervised, even if one is autistic, left to the supervision of her 9yo sister, even when a teenager got killed. No one seems to be noticing Ben's mother absence either. It's an interesting take on the theme, the way the children experiment with their power is totally different from what adults would do, simpler, funnier, in the beginning, and rapidly more cruel too. Even the simple fact that they just simply accept the existence of these powers.

Not a fan of "the innocents" concept. These children are not innocents, it usually implies they wouldn't know the difference between good and evil, but they clearly do, they know what they're doing is bad. Even less a fan of the cliche of the psychopath child killing a cat.
Here it's still important, it's Ida's turning point but still would have rather not see it. Before that she's pretty bad herself, specially with her sister. I mean [spoiler]the broken glass in the shoe ? When she knows that Anna won't say anything and keep hurting herself for a long time[/spoiler], that was pretty hardcore. She was also ok with throwing the cat from the 10th floor, and just drew the limit at crushing his skull afterwards...
I like that we have no idea where these powers came from, and even if the last fight show us that lots of children are at least able to feel what's happening, it's not even a subject, clearly still a secret from adults, and they never interacted with others.

Anyway, even if it's pretty expected the story works, and the tension is still there, the children are actually quite good, specially Anna, and they have a lot of evolution during the story.
Ben is a solid [spoiler]antagonist[/spoiler]. It's shown early that he's a psychopath but the getting worse part is well done and you rapidly have no issue accepting that [spoiler]this child must be killed[/spoiler].