The Age of Innocence (1993)

The Age of Innocence is centered within the crème de la crème of New York’s society during the second half of the nineteenth century. There is absolutely no scarcity of means for its dwellers. They lunch, dine and amuse themselves almost like royalty. The meals are divided in many courses, they are always wearing tuxedos and ball dresses, the gentlemen change their pair of gloves for each lady they waltz with. But there seems to be a price for such an exquisite way of living.

The uneasiness of the story begins when Newland Archer (Daniel Day Lewis), already groomed to the fresh young, loving May Welland (Winona Ryder), begins to tilt his attraction for Countess Olenska (Michelle Pfeiffer) who has just arrived from Europe, after splitting with her husband. The matter is that Mrs Olenska, although having lived in New York before marring, never really got used to its usages. Also, her possible divorce seems to hang over the entire society as a true scandal. For his part, Newland accepts her misfortune and understands it as a challenge to the solid old conventions they all endure. Thus, the natural, slight, almost unperceivable, retraction everybody seems have towards the Countess is nonexistent within Newland. This boundless relation between them allows him to envisage her as an escape from a living he soon describes as the taste of “cinders in his mouth”.

Will they resist each other?

The Age of Innocence is about incarceration without bars, at least for the protagonist. He lives on a society where people have “no character, no colour, no variety”, where they cannot truly speak their minds. When Newland realizes he is in love for the Countess, and starts to act like it, all this society moves discreetly and almost imperceptibly to prevent him from reaching his goal. In spite of this general effort, Archer is not prevented solely by his peers, but ultimately due his and the Countess’s countenance. Chance also plays a part on this decorum prevention, as it happens on the beautiful lighthouse scene.

Some things are worth fighting for

This movie is also, and mostly, about choices, and the right ones. Much later, when the whole stillborn romance is over for all, we are somehow struck with the summing up of Archer’s life, and the positive outcome that he kept the respect for his wife, family and even for himself, by refusing to be subdued to what could have been the great love of his life, and, simultaneously, the rejection of his entire self as how he lived it. In the end we are granted with the notion that life doesn’t resume only to passionate love above all else. The inevitable association is with that scene on “Closer” when Natalie Portman’s character, on knowing Jude Law’s betrayal, says to him: “There's a moment, there's always a moment, "I can do this, I can give into this, or I can resist it"”. Closer’s protagonist gave in, Newland Archer did not.  

Another obligatory comparison is with “The Bridges of Madison County”. On this movie Maryl Streep’s character, married for many years, is bound in a few days long romance. Much later, when she dies and her already grown up daughter searches through her mother’s closed-for-decades trunk, the most precious things to be found are the letters exchanged by the deceased and her mistress. “The Bridges of Madison County” presents upside-down, implausible, ethics, as the woman keep on being married, sharing a whole life together with her husband, but, alas, the altar of her existence rests on a weekend affair.  Therefore, on “The Age of Innocence” the protagonist follows an entirely different path, much more credible by all means, as his lustful aspirations are sublimated throughout his marriage, full of its typical nuances, hardships and achievements that keeps binding the two of them together.

This is what coming of age really is about!