Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

The movie runs out of plot and jokes well before the end of a two-hour running time, long for a light comedy.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Films like this are the reason that independent film often gets such a bad rap. It's a messy, sloppy series of images which have very little relationship with each other, slapped together with some "biblical imagery" which is about as subtle as getting shot from point blank range with a shotgun, and with some of the most obnoxious, pretentious classical piano music lathered all over the top of everything.The allegory is heavier than a copy of "A short guide to the Australian Taxation system", but despite the woeful film-making, this might have been tolerable if it weren't for acting. Not that I blame most of the actors, who don't seem to really want to be there, for the depths this movie plummets to, but when there's only about ten minutes of dialogue, you need to do better than a vaguely disinterested performance to make something of a film. As it is, the performances mean that it's very difficult to draw any links between the characters, or anything at all that's going on. This reduces the film to a series of disconnected scenes and shots, which will leave most viewers wondering what exactly is supposed to be going on.I'm not even going to go into the pervasive nudity and the like, which has seemingly been added simply for the sake of having some pervasive nudity in the film. I'm no fundamentalist wowser, but if you're going to do things like that, please at least have a point to it.Essentially though, this film is pretentious art for the sake of making a pretentious art film. This does not translate into a film that is worth watching at all. Avoid.

Mike Figgis is a gifted director, but he is capable of the best and the worst, and no one can foresee how his next film will be like. From my point of view, his best feature up to day is "The Browning version". He has also made good films ("Stormy Monday", "Leaving Las Vegas") but sometimes he plummets into the hollow ("One night stand"), the commercial ("Mr. Jones") or watches himself for almost two hours ("The Loss of sexual innocence"). Maybe inspired by Kieslowsky, this film lacks the depth of the polish master, and is a boring collection of images supposed to be related with the awakening of the being, or the sexual self-consciousness, or whatever was roaming into the director's mind.

...Cathartic. Personal. Visceral. Human. Tense. Motivated movement. Deliberate, careful pace. Reactive. Hated or Loved. Transcendental.Not everyone will like this film. I'll venture further to say a lot of people will not like it. That doesn't mean you shouldn't give it a chance. If you like to look at beautiful art in a museum, everything from modern art to the more traditional painterly forms, see this film. If Miles Davis' Bitches Brew speaks to you, you have the capacity to enjoy this film. If you like films that highly affect you, see this one. However, if you are looking for something with a plain, spoon-fed storyline and theme, this is not for you. Or if you don't want to think (you just want to be numbly entertained), go see something else. But to dismiss it for any other reason or to walk out of it before it is over, is a travesty. Give it the benefit of the doubt. Let it say its piece. Like all great works of art, you have to look at it as a whole.The Loss of Sexual Innocence is a bold-faced rebellion against the way people normally appreciate films. It challenges you to feel deeply and search for meanings, just as we do in everyday life; just as it is our nature to do. This film is what you get from it. It is how you see it and interpret it. One person looks at a Velazquez painting and sees an old woman cooking. Another person looks at the same painting and sees the realism of the two fish on the plate and the translucent quality of the raw egg in the soup. And yet another person sees or feels the emotion on the woman's face, empathizing with her. Figgis' film has that capacity. Look at it with those kind of eyes; open-minded. Go with the feelings that it stirs up in you, whatever they may be. Search these feelings out, even after the film is over. A strong reaction from the see-er is the true artist's goal.It is exciting to have a film like this from Mike Figgis. After his more mainstream and widely accepted Leaving Las Vegas, this is a healthy validation for him. The Loss... is masterfully crafted. Every detail and brush-stroke is intentional and utterly important. It plays like a symphony to the senses with both visual and 'audial' recapitulations and cadences; an experience that stays with you.

This movie tries WAY too hard to be artistic. the story is imbedded underneath so much confusion and symbology that its hard to tell what the director is trying to say.its as if the writers took 50 scenes and threw them into the air, and picked them up randomly, and that was the movie. the scenes look as if the editors didnt know how to cut a scene.nothing happens. dont waste your time. this is a 1/10 movie. the director is NOT an artist, but he definately wants to be one. he failed. he should not make any more movies. the end