The Fallen Idol

The Fallen Idol finds innocence and inquisitiveness at odds with corruption, violence, desire, deceit - all the stuff that grown-ups trade in.

The Fallen Idol stands as one of the great films about looking, about perspective, about the way we watch and interpret not just film plots but each other.

As a portrait of the sometime destructiveness of innocence and as a sharp fresco of post-war Britain, this movie is a little masterpiece, an idol that has never fallen.

It's a masterful and unsentimental child's-eye view of the cold, hard adult world.

An indelible portrait of childhood's confusions, disillusionments and inevitable lost innocence.

Remains one of those classics that makes you thankful you haven't seen them all.

Although Reed's auteurism has been debated and doubted, The Fallen Idol underscores several recurrent motifs in his career.

It's all quite moving and nerve-wracking - and believable.

One of the movies' great treatises on the projection and (ultimate) limitations of a child's inner-world.

Written by the great Graham Greene, the film builds up pressure subtly over time, creating an entire narrative around the cascading consequences of dishonesty.