Metacritic reviews

Not all of it works, but you play along, because it's rare to find a film this ambitious.

[Figgis's] most venturesome, most personal - and least accessible film to date. If you open your mind and trust him completely, it's possible to experience the wrenching impact of this ravishingly beautiful and highly distinctive film.

The Loss of Sexual Innocence is not a masterpiece (at times, its obtuseness can seem ponderous and pretentious), it is nevertheless a fascinating experience, with the focus being on the artistic elements inherent in the medium rather than on the narrative.

It's visually stunning, especially in scenes of the African countryside, and takes more risks than most independent films.

There's some darn poignant stuff going on here.... The problem is that the audience will try to connect everything to the explicit Eden analogy, and not everything will. The director wins points for enticing you to figure it out, though, and I did enjoy it.

This is a gutsy, oddly inspiring film that embodies both the risks and rewards of artistic boldness.

The absence of substance, or its banishment, and the director's reliance on allure (in the film's casting and in its look and sound, which features haunting music by Beethoven and Chopin), leave Innocence with the quasi-profound, giggly overreach of a magazine layout come to shameless, shallow life.

The Loss of Sexual Innocence is a failure to be sure, but if it's not exactly a brave one, it's one whose foolhardiness deserves at least half a salute.

This is gold-plated navel gazing in the worst 60s style.

What I experienced was a lot of fetid experimental-film folderol perfumed by Chopin nocturnes on the soundtrack.