Innocence is an admirable attribute, but when it’s combined with naivety, things sometimes go wrong. In Hollywood, there are several examples of characters who are not only unaware of most things that are happening around them but also make a number of questionable choices. These individuals aren’t necessarily cowardly. They just believe everyone around them is as good-hearted as them and that all is well in the world.
Such characters thus find themselves walking into danger many times, and in some instances, they pay dearly for their failure to notice the cracks. On other occasions the naivety only leads to comical and awkward moments that are great for audiences, but embarrassing for the characters themselves. For now, these are our favorite of the most innocent and naïve people in movies.
20Cal Weaver in Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011)
InCrazy, Stupid, Love,Cal is introduced as a blissfully ignorant dad. He has no clue his wife is unhappy, so it comes as a huge surprise when she tells him she is having an affair with a co-worker and wants a divorce. He also has no idea the nanny has a crush on him and that his 13-year-old son has a crush on the same nanny.
After the divorce, Cal is forced to hit the night spots and pick up women, but he has no clue how to do that either. Luckily for him, he draws the sympathy of a womanizer who teaches him all the skills required for effective seduction. Still, his naivety remains, resulting in some hilariously awkward situations.
19Navin Johnson in The Jerk (1979)
Navin fromThe Jerkis the kind of person who walks around doing random acts of kindness to strangers. For example, while briefly working as a gas station attendant, he spots a customer’s spectacles almost falling off and helps him by attaching a tiny device above the nose. The man happens to be an inventor, so he promises to patent the idea and share the profits with Navin.
Because he isn’t concerned with the running of businesses or any other complex things in the world, he lets the inventor do as he pleases. As expected, his lack of curiosity ultimately costs him. Soon, he begins getting checks of up to $250,000, making him very wealthy. Sadly, users of the device, now branded Opti-Grab, become cross-eyed and sue both the inventor and Nash. He is ordered to pay over $10 million, leaving him as broke as he was before.
18Nashawn Wade in Soul Plane (2004)
Passengers buttocks don’t usually get stuck in a plane’s toilet, butSoul Planeis an absurd movie in many ways, so such things happen. It all starts with Nashawn getting served a stale in-flight meal (hardly the worst part). Moments later, his dog, which had been incorrectly labeled as checked baggage, gets sucked into the engine when a stewardess accidentally opens the plane’s cargo door.
Unwilling to let it all pass, Nashawn sues, and to his surprise, he is awarded $100 million for all the pain. Interestingly, he chooses to start a hipihop-themed airline with the money. While Nashawn is happy to be wealthy, he has no clue how his plane is being run by his employees. His cousin even employs a hilarious quack pilot who happens to be a former convict and is actually afraid of heights. The TSA agents at the terminal rarely do thorough inspections either. Eventually, Nashawn is forced to perform an emergency landing himself after the pilot becomes too high on drugs and gets a heart attack.
17Chance the Gardener in Being There (1979)
Chance fromBeing Theretakes minimalism to a new level. He only owns a few tailor-made clothes from the ‘20s and for most of his adult life, he never steps out of the townhouse where he works as a gardener. When his employer dies, he doesn’t lay claim to the property, so he gets evicted and wanders off into the city.
The character’s lack of knowledge about the outside world ends up being a blessing rather than a curse. When the wife of a presidential advisor bumps into him in the streets, she mishears “Chance the Gardener” as “Chauncey Gardiner" and mistakes him for a sophisticated aristocrat. She then introduces him to her husband, who in turn introduces him to the President. Interestingly, Chance’s innocent gardening terms such as “stimulating growth” and “pruning branches” get misinterpreted as poetic analyses of the economy, so he gets credit as a financial advisor. Still, he remains innocent, oblivious to the fact that he is being considered as a candidate for the next election.
16Paulie Cicero in Goodfellas (1990)
For a mob boss, Paulie fromGoodfellasis a little too magnanimous. He is especially lenient to Henry Hill, who goes on to become an FBI informant at the end of the movie. It takes Paulie a very long time to find out that Henry has been dealing drugs without his approval and when he makes the discovery, he only ends their association instead of whacking him the traditional Cosa Nostra way.
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Given the erratic way in which mobsters behave, it’s clear that any boss needs to micromanage, yet Paulie hardly ever does that. He also trusts people too much and as such, Henry acquires too much information about him. When he finally becomes a turncoat, the young mobster hands over this info to the authorities, resulting in the conviction of various high-profile Lucchese crime family figures.
15President Merkin Muffley in Dr. Strangelove (1964)
A POTUS is required to be charming, observant, stern, and immune to manipulation. Interestingly, Muffley fromDr. Strangelovedoesn’t fit any of the above descriptions. He is a good person who would rather avoid trouble, so the threat of nuclear war becomes a headache for him. So timid is he that he allows U.S. planes to be shot down in order to make the Soviets happy.
Muffley also doesn’t know that his scientific advisor, Dr. Strangelove, is actually a Nazi hiding in America. As such, he considers some of his weird bits of advice such as moving every high-ranking government official into a bunker and giving them 10 women each, so they can repopulate the world at the end of the nuclear war.
14Wade Gustafson in Fargo (1996)
Some fathers do everything in their power to make their daughters happy and inFargo, the tycoon Wade Gustafson goes as far as employing his son-in-law Jerry as the executive sales manager of his car dealership to ensure he doesn’t end up a loser. Sadly, he never realizes that Jerry is a sinister money-hungry character.
Jerry gets his own wife kidnapped and then lies to Wade that the kidnappers want $1 million and that they will only deal with him. Wade never notices that Jerry’s behavior is off and when it comes time to give the ransom, he opts to do it himself (something he thinks is smart), only for him to get killed by one of the kidnappers.
13Dong-ik in Parasite (2019)
Parasitebrilliantlyblends horror, drama, and comedy, but what’s more fascinating about the Best Picture-winning film is how naïve the wealthy Park family is. And as the patriarch, Dong-ik deserves all the blame for everything that happens. Unknown to him, his chauffeur, the nanny, and the two tutors for his children all come from one family known as the Kims. After one of them was hired, the Kims conspired to have Dong-ik’s other employees fired so that they could take over.
By allowing all this to happen under his watch, Dong-ik ends up paying dearly. Later in the film, it’s revealed that he also had no idea that the former nanny had her husband living in the basement so that she could protect him from loan sharks and feed him every day. How such a bright and successful man would fail to notice all these things is a mystery, but the movie wouldn’t have worked if not for his ignorance.
12Bobby in The Waterboy (1998)
Kathy Bates sure knows how to portray manipulative caregivers and guardians.Mama fromThe Waterboyremains one of her iconic roles and in the movie, she fools her son Bobby in many ways. First, she lies to him that his father died in the Sahara while working for the Peace Corps. She then feigns a coma in order to get more attention from him.
Because he is nice and trustful of everyone, Bobby rarely sees through the manipulation. The more he allows it, the worse things become and soon, his mother attempts to influence his dating choices and dissuades him from playing football. Luckily, Bobby ultimately sees through all the lies and stands up for himself.
11Norville Barnes in The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)
Naïve people normally end up getting used as pawns and that’s the case for Norville inThe Hudsucker Proxy. Aiming to take control of Hudsucker Industries, board member Sidney J. Mussburger comes up with a plan to devalue the stock to make a takeover cheaper. In order to achieve his mission, he hires Norville to be CEO, knowing that his lack of knowledge will cause the share values to tank.
Norville is never smart enough to see that he is being used. He believes he has earned the promotion and goes on to act like a tough boss. In addition to that, he never suspects one of the employees working in the company, who is secretly an undercover Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. Fortunately, he redeems himself by driving the company to profitability, hence thwarting Mussburger’s plans.
