One of the few Winona Ryder films i avoided buying back in the day on VHS as i knew as a teenager i would hate it.

Fast forward nearly 30 years and having watched many period dramas in-between times, i can comfortably say i made the right choice all those years ago! The film is quite a hard watch unless accustomed to period dramas, its very static and blinkered to one story with no little branches of fun or stories on the side leaving you wishing for a break from the 2 and half hours of intense drama.

That's not to say i hated it, it was worth a watch and the acting especially from Daniel Day-Lewis and Michelle Pfeiffer was superb. It's just not a film that has a rewatch factor.

Knowing nothing about this film, except that it was clearly a costume drama and directed by the esteemed Martin Scorsese, I placed a lot of faith in its stellar cast. After all Daniel Day-Lewis is a legendary actor while Michelle Pfeiffer and Winona Ryder are usually worth the price of admission.

I won't say that I was mislead but really the whole is not greater than the sum of the parts. OK the story is all about repressed longing in the upper class echelons of New York society but you can go to far squeezing out the emotional juice. Do that and you're left with naught but ashes.

That's the fate of "The Age of Innocence" with each scene being a study in appearing artful and clever. The sets look fantastic, the attention to detail mesmerising and the lighting subtle but it's all rather antiseptic. Are these people really human you wonder?

For a far more involving viewing experience I'd stick to "The Remains of the Day" or "Brief Encounter". Both of these wonderful films shutter their emotions but my you really feel for the characters and their heartache. In short you care about them.

Sadly while "The Age of Innocence" paints an impressive picture of its time and place I just didn't care about the people and their choices. Maybe they should have cared more about themselves?

I really liked this movie because it was so rich in every aspect: from the acting, to the setting and the costumes, the cinematography and the score, everything was beautifully crafted. The movie seems to start slowly and the story is only relatively important. More than anything it is an occasion for Scorsese to talk about the NY upper society of the late 1800, and it's rigid way, sometimes desperate (see Ryder's character), often cruel to maintain an identity (paradoxically built on the European upper class mold) despite the changes that were happening. I was very impressed by the use of the objects, the clothes of the time to describe the feeling of the scene or of the characters involved.

The actors are all very good, but Michelle Pfeiffer really delivers and excellent performance. Also Winona Ryder's character is well portrayed and towards the end of the movie, the actress is able to convincingly show how her character is much more layered than what it seems to be in the beginning of the story.

In my opinion this movie deserves 8