Innocence is a 2004 French avant-garde coming-of-age psychological drama[3] film written and directed by Lucile Hadžihalilović in her feature directorial debut,[4] inspired by the 1903 novella Mine-Haha, or On the Bodily Education of Young Girls by Frank Wedekind, and starring Marion Cotillard.

[6] After a series of images of rushing water, forest, and dark, empty subterranean hallways, six-year-old Iris arrives inside a coffin placed in a dormitory's common area, where she is met with general warmth and curiosity by the other six girls who live in the house.

One night, Iris follows Bianca on her secret errand, but she loses track of the older girl once she reaches the main building.

With Iris's help – and a pledge of secrecy – she steals a rowboat in an attempt to escape, but drowns when the boat starts to leak and the weather turns sour.

As winter arrives, the focus shifts to the ten-year-old Alice, the fifth-year blue ribbon, who is hungry to leave the school and see the world outside.

She has placed her hopes on winning the annual inspection of the blue ribbons, where the mysterious headmistress arrives from afar and, after watching them dance, chooses one girl from the class to leave the school early with her for an unknown reason.

As we see her flee into the snowy woods beyond, camouflaged by her white uniform, we hear the sound of distant gunshots and barking dogs.

They find an abandoned men's theatre glove, and encounter one of the servants counting the performance's receipts—this, the girls are informed, is how the school makes its money.

In the 'extras' on the DVD release, the director relates that children playing unsupervised in nature (the forest, the pond) is a 'freeing' setting for them, an 'uncontrolled' environment to explore.

Water is very important, as it is a highly visible medium in its many forms (including within or from underneath a surface), and it is necessary, sensual, and enjoyable, but also dangerous (the drowning), and evokes many emotions.

She states they digitally enhanced or 'tweaked' colors in the film to 'non-realistic' tones, to achieve mood and lighting effect, particularly day for night shots.

The website's consensus reads, "Beautiful, inscrutable, and overall unsettling, Innocence may leave viewers wondering what they've just seen, but it'll certainly be difficult to forget.

"[8] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 78 out of 100, based on 13 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".