New York doyen Martin Scorsese directs another movie set in the city that never sleeps. However, "The Age of Innocence" is not about streets that are mean, bulls who rage, or fellas who are good. It focuses on the hypocrisy of 1870s high society. Daniel Day-Lewis's respected lawyer is engaged to Winona Ryder's heiress, but then falls for her cousin (Michelle Pfeiffer).
The idea behind the story is that the main character is as trapped by his surroundings as is Travis Bickle in "Taxi Driver". There's not an iota of bloodshed in this adaptation of Edith Wharton's novel, but the emotional violence that the characters here perpetrate on each other is analogous to the physical violence in Scorsese's most famous movies. The innocence of the title is as much of a facade as is the lifestyle in "The Graduate".
Nonetheless, I couldn't watch the movie without throwing out a few "MST3K"-style comments. For one thing, I kept thinking to myself "This is directed by the man who gave us 'The Wolf of Wall Street'." Also, any look at high society tempts me to launch some barbs. I just find it hard to take such a focus seriously. To crown everything, Daniel Day-Lewis's other 1993 movie was "In the Name of the Father", which couldn't have been more different from "The Age of Innocence".
In the end, I recommend the movie. To my knowledge, Martin Scorsese has never made a bad movie. The rest of the cast includes Geraldine Chaplin, Michael Gough, Mary Beth Hurt, Norman Lloyd, Miriam Margolyes, Jonathan Pryce and Joanne Woodward.
The idea behind the story is that the main character is as trapped by his surroundings as is Travis Bickle in "Taxi Driver". There's not an iota of bloodshed in this adaptation of Edith Wharton's novel, but the emotional violence that the characters here perpetrate on each other is analogous to the physical violence in Scorsese's most famous movies. The innocence of the title is as much of a facade as is the lifestyle in "The Graduate".
Nonetheless, I couldn't watch the movie without throwing out a few "MST3K"-style comments. For one thing, I kept thinking to myself "This is directed by the man who gave us 'The Wolf of Wall Street'." Also, any look at high society tempts me to launch some barbs. I just find it hard to take such a focus seriously. To crown everything, Daniel Day-Lewis's other 1993 movie was "In the Name of the Father", which couldn't have been more different from "The Age of Innocence".
In the end, I recommend the movie. To my knowledge, Martin Scorsese has never made a bad movie. The rest of the cast includes Geraldine Chaplin, Michael Gough, Mary Beth Hurt, Norman Lloyd, Miriam Margolyes, Jonathan Pryce and Joanne Woodward.