The End of Innocence

1st watched 4/12/2001 - 5 out of 10 (Dir-Dyan Cannon): Well-meaning seemingly autobiographical piece about the real Dyan Cannon, played by the real person, as well as written and directed. This is I think where the movie went wrong. It's too much of her and very little of anyone else. The supporting players do not give much to the movie, and they all seem to be caricatures of her perspective on them. Dyan actually does some of her best dramatic work which really should have been an opening for her playing more down-to-earth parts. But I have yet to see them come for her. And I still don't understand the title? It started out being about a little girl losing her innocence but that theme wasn't followed through, instead we got nutcase Dyan and her rehabilitation being the central theme. Nice try, but not quite enough.

(1990) The End Of Innocence PSYCHOLOGICAL DRAMA

Written, directed and starred Dylan Cannon as Stephanie chronologically showing the time when she was young to the time she was older and the mental breakdown that occurred as she's living her adult life. Her parents eventually pay money to treat her relapse in a civilized mental facility to cure people of their irrational behaviors and may somewhat be of a biography! Means well, but really quite annoying with all that pointless screaming and yelling. John Heard stars as one of the doctors treating her and Michael Madsen has a small role as one of the patients. All of this can be solved and shortened within' a 40 minute TV show!

Writer-director-star Dyan Cannon has just as much vitality and zest as any young starlet working today, and the wisdom she's acquired through the years is apparent in her softer, more pensive moments--an added plus. Yet in her autobiographical drama, "The End of Innocence", Cannon the writer never gets at the root of the central character's problem (doing things to please other people). Even though Cannon as an actress is still attractive, the woman she's playing here takes no shape; she's a bobble head doll. Personal projects can swing either way (remarkably reckless or too bland and safe), and I would have to say Cannon, at some point along in her journey, hedged her bets and decided to play it safe. "The End of Innocence" (terrible title!) is a thinly-structured film about one woman's strength through independence, but Cannon doesn't need to apologize to anyone for being herself, nor for having faults or for not always being a saint. Her sense of nostalgia in the flashback bits is fun and well-meaning, but here is where she gives the narrative her only passion. The modern-day scenes have no drive--there doesn't seem to be a script to work from--and the quick cuts and tricks cannot camouflage the fact the material just wasn't strong enough. One likes (or wants to like) Cannon right off the mark, but she attempts to submerge her own personality with this material. Wistful is fine, frazzled is better, but a benumbed Dyan Cannon is an automatic anticlimax. *1/2 from ****

I am a fan of Dyan Cannon. She is an accomplished and reliable actress – one of the great screen comediennes of her generation. It is really sad one can't see her in more parts and in more interesting ones. To someone like me who knows the USA largely through movies (thus belonging to the majority of Mother Earth's population), loud, energetic, tough and cute Dyan Cannon epitomizes the quintessential American woman. She does this in a very charming kind of way that never fails to delight me – somehow she generates the same effects as Audrey Hepburn by being the exact opposite of that mondaine actress who also had big comic talents.

End of Innocence, written and directed by Cannon, is faintly reminiscent of some of Woody Allen's pictures. The movie tries to analyze the behavior of the main character and the way she conceives the people around her. Her life is reconsidered right from the start – in the light of what is going to happen, as the viewer will understand after a while. It begins with a biographical part that moves on at a brisk pace and is really well edited, directed and written. A merry-go-round is used as a metaphor which is nice to watch but also somehow confusing. The story does not suggest that the main character's life moves in circles, it rather leads up to a nervous breakdown in a linear fashion as she continuously tries to be perfect and to please everybody, accumulating bad, unhealthy habits on the way.

The second part of the movie is dedicated to the redeeming qualities of an asylum for financially potent people. Group therapy and forced confinement do the trick: The main character gets off the pills, the reefers and the boyfriend who does not really care for her. She does not get off the really nasty, eternally quabbling or nagging parents though (after all, they pay for the treatment!). Apart from the good acting of Cannon and the other group members (among them Michael Madsen), this part offers little. It does not explain much to someone who is foreign to the world of psychiatric treatment. I failed to see the good of group therapy, and the comraderie between the group members appeared to be rather constrained.

It is not quite clear to what the title End of Innocence refers. The movie tells a story about coming of age (belatedly), the word innocence is probably used for expressing the absence of insight. I am aware that there is some moral scope attached to this movie: the main character wants to be a good person and to become a better one. And that is exactly the effect of the stay in the asylum. The woman remains the same, minus the bad habits. And the horse of the merry-go-round is replaced by a gift of the therapy group: a real white stallion of which the main character dreamed (right, with a prince on it). Again, the symbolism is endearing but not convincing. But then I wonder: Is it just that I don't understand the movie, that I don't understand America? Do people there really reduce their fellow men to a few selected behaviour patterns to become familiar with them? Is life really nothing more than an eternal "keeping up with the Jonses"? Is physical exertion (work out sessions with various instruments and occasional gymnastics with sexual partners in bed) only a means to keep a perfect shape, and not a natural way for humans to explore the world and its wonders? If these questions can be answered in the affirmative, then innocence is still intact.

The End of Innocence is a masterpiece. Those of you wondering why the title, it was the end of thinking that everything was fine with her life and the realization that the act was no longer going to work, in fact it was killing her. This is the true essence picture of a codependent, doing everything she can to make everyone happy at the expense of her own well being. Such a powerful movie for those growing up in narcissistic families where the parent did not meet the needs of their children but expected the children to meet the needs of the parent.

I liked how the movie showed the key parts of her childhood history from birth to the present in a fast paced, entertaining way. The mother was a piece of work, even at birth Stephanie wasn't good enough for being a girl instead of a boy.

Dyan looked wonderful, she is such a beautiful lady. Hard to believe she was in her 60's when she made this movie, she looks decades younger.