Nic is 5 year old in 1953 Kenya. Later, he attends an all-boys school in England. Nic (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) catches his drunken girlfriend Susan (Kelly Macdonald) making out at a funeral. Gina McKee and Bernard Hill play her parents. Adult Nic (Julian Sands) drive his wife (Johanna Torell) and son to a country house. There is a black man Adam and a white girl Eve with a white horse. Another story follows Saffron Burrows as separated English and Italian twins running into each other at the airport. The Italian one is picked up by Nic. They and others go off to the Sahara desert.Writer/director Mike Figgis delivers a disjointed, disconnected story. There is a connection that almost makes sense but never truly delivers any powerful point. It tries to be this big idea starting with the title but ends up with nothing more than a muddled experimental art-house film. It is never emotionally connected. All of the effort is stuck trying to understand the lack of flow.

It isn't often that one happens upon a movie as contemptible as Mike Figgis' "The Loss of Sexual Innocence". Mike Figgis has always been a pretentious and overreaching director and screenwriter. His past successes have largely been due to excellent source material and some genuine talent with regards to his technical ability as a director. When these items were combined with truly excellent performances, such as Cage and Shue in "Leaving Las Vegas", Figgis' has managed to produce a legitimately good movie. None of the above is true for "TLoSI".First off, Mike Figgis might think his life is interesting, and perhaps it is, but his own telling of his sex life is dreadfully boring. At least he certainly makes it out to be that way. Sex is almost always a great topic for a movie (even when you show absolutely nothing graphic) because it is such an integral component of the human condition. And yet, in this movie, with all its handsome players, it's mind numbingly dull and extremely anti-erotic.I think possibly the biggest problem that plagues this movie is Figgis' own inability to identify or empathize with other people. This is noticeable in his writing and direction in other movies, but in those cases it appears intentional and provided an unflinching look at disturbing subject matter. This movie actually seems to shed some distressing light on his earlier work as it appears that his detached style of storytelling is, in fact, a flaw. In scene after scene, we treated to imagery that is supposed to evoke emotional understanding, yet the scenes are comprised simply of clichéd approximations of legitimately provoking imagery. It is not unlike watching a sociopath feign remorse or guilt; they might say all the right things and perform all the right actions, but it still comes across hollow and insincere.Now, take all the above and combine it with editing that is full of self aggrandizing nonsense. Soaring music lingers over a minute of watching an Alitalia jet on approach. A series of ridiculous Adam & Eve sequences that culminates in one of the few unintentionally hilarious moments where there is actual filmed urination and, in just one of a hundred disjointed scenes, a totally untalented Julian Sands spewing standard Hollywood token eco-nonsense. And yet, none of what I have written can convey just how awful this movie really is; avoid it at all costs.

This film was so painful to watch that I turned it off about halfway through. It was excruciatingly bad. The lack of dialog was annoying, the same piano sonata playing constantly in the background was even more annoying, and the "story" was practically nonexistent. It was trying very hard to be arty, but it was just laughable instead. Nothing in the film was connected. What on earth did the story of the twins have to do with Nic's story? What did that ridiculous Adam-and-Eve sequence have to do with anything? The answer is nothing. Nothing in this film has anything to do with anything else. Mike Figgis should be embarrassed about making this movie, which is like a bad senior thesis from an untalented film-school student. I've got news for him: Taking a bunch of pretty images and setting them to music does not a film make.

You are not captured to watch the movie in the first few minutes, just made confused by how the story unfolds and how it is presented to the audience. The movie jumped from story line to story line, just when you are getting interested in a part of the story, it shifts to something else. This is NOT Artful or Creative, just messy storytelling in a shoddy way! There does not seem to be one train of thought that wants to lure you into the story. Personally I would re-edit it so the story would not seem so confusing.Now I can see why it took Mike Figgis so long to find financing for this movie. The movie was so fragmented that it was pathetic. If he hadn't done Leaving Las Vegas this movie would NEVER been made! What a waste of creativeness by a director/writer and what a waste of talent for this movie.I think this script should have been left in a box somewhere to collect dust and fall apart!