MOVIE REVIEW : ‘End’ an Honest Search for Self-Esteem

In 1976, Dyan Cannon won an Oscar nomination for her remarkable short film “Number One,” which showed how in early childhood we are made to feel guilty and confused about natural functions, drives and needs. In a very real sense her new feature, “The End of Innocence” (AMC Century 14), expands on those concerns. It’s as if Cannon--the film’s writer, director and star--is playing one of those children now grown up.

At the climax of “The End of Innocence,” Cannon gets carried away in her harrowing saga of a woman fighting to overcome a mental breakdown. She indulges in some foolish and overly emotional exultation; even so, her film is consistently a work of honesty and courage, deeply personal without being literally autobiographical. It’s unsettling in the best sense because it’s so easy to see yourself in varying degrees in Cannon’s Stephanie, who strives her entire life to please others in her hunger to be loved, only to end up with nothing left of herself for herself.

In a series of swift and succinct vignettes Cannon traces Stephanie from a child growing up in what seems clearly--but is never directly stated--a volatile Jewish household. Very early on, Stephanie (played from ages 18 to 25 by the late Rebecca Schaeffer) learns to feel guilty about sex, yet in her desire to be loved is seduced more easily than she could ever imagine.

By the time Cannon assumes the role, Stephanie is a neurotic, middle-aged divorcee in love with a nakedly self-absorbed and callous younger man (Steve Meadows) and working indifferently for her father (George Coe) at his lampshade business. She is a constant pill-popper and pot smoker who seems to live on ice cream bars.

Stephanie’s inevitable crack-up and painful rehabilitation in intense group therapy (overseen by a calm, controlled John Heard) is the stuff of TV movie melodrama. What gives Cannon’s histrionics as the now-raging Stephanie an edge is that Cannon the writer and Cannon the director chillingly convince us that the people nearest and dearest to Stephanie have never really paid any attention to her.

You get the feeling that her shrill, vulgar mother (Lola Mason) as well as her father have never thought about her or listened to her. They seem to regard parenting as merely laying down rules and expectations and providing for their daughter materially. Stephanie, both as a child and as an adult, doesn’t seem to exist as an individual for them.

“The End of Innocence” (rated R for language and adult themes), which features Renee Taylor as a randy participant in the group sessions, has drive and passion. The sense of desperation that permeates both Cannon’s performance and the all-too-heady note of triumph upon which the film ends suggests that for people like Stephanie, who is not so different from the rest of us, the struggle for self-esteem never is really over.

‘The End of Innocence’

Dyan Cannon: Stephanie

Steve Meadows: Michael

Rebecca Schaeffer: Young Stephanie

George Coe: Dad

Lola Mason: Mom

A Skouras Pictures release of an O.P.V. production. Executive producer Leonard Rabinowitz. Co-executive producer Stanley Fimburg. Producers Thom Tyson, Vince Cannon. Cinematographer Alex Nepomniaschy. Music Michael Convertino. Production designer Paul Eads. Costumes Carole Little. Film editor Bruce Cannon. Running time: 1 hour, 42 minutes.

MPAA-rated: R (younger than 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian).