Overall Rating
  Awesome: 30.73%
Worth A Look: 29.05%
Just Average: 12.29%
Pretty Crappy: 13.41%
Sucks: 14.53%
12 reviews, 107 user ratings
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| Hard Candy |
by Todd LaPlace
"Tough to swallow, but worth the effort."
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There are moments during “Hard Candy” when you’ll be tempted to laugh, including during the twisted final showdown between pedophile and prey, torturer and victim. There are also moments during “Hard Candy” when you’ll fidget uncomfortably in your seat. Sometimes these moments are one and the same. All of the moments of this perverse revenge fantasy, however, are nothing but brilliant.Thanks, in large part I suspect, to the sudden success of MySpace among teens, “protecting our teens from online predators” seems to be this month’s vogue social topic. “Dateline” featured it. CNN discussed it. Even MySpace is running ads that read “1 in 5 kids online is sexually solicited. Online predators know what they’re doing. Do you?”
If you’re 14-year-old Hayley Stark (Ellen Page), the star of festival fav “Hard Candy,” you definitely do. She’s grown up in the Internet age and has probably known her e-mail address longer than her phone number. But none of that stops Hayley, aka Thonggrrrrl14, from conducting an online relationship with Lensman319, 32-year-old photographer Jeff (Patrick Wilson). Much of their relationship is light and fluffy — they talk about indie music and the books of Zadie Smith — but it occasionally stumbles into inappropriate flirting. Hayley is testing her boundaries, exploring her limits and Jeff, as the mature chatter, should be the one to draw the line. Yet, when Hayley suggests a meeting IRL (that’s in real life for the tech ignorant), Jeff is more than happy to share a cup of coffee and a suggestive slice of cake.
The debut feature of music video director (another one?) David Slade, “Hard Candy” is not the typical movie you’d call beautiful, but that’s the best way to describe Slade’s style. When the pair travel to Jeff’s home — to innocently listen to a Goldfrapp bootleg, I’m sure — the house is softly bathed in light, emphasizing Jeff’s modern style sensibilities. Occasionally excessive — Slade does have a pension for close ups and shaky cams — the style almost perfectly captures Jeff, drenched in fake charm and transparent motives. We can see through Jeff’s disguise, but Hayley’s just an innocent teen pixie, right?
I’m sure that was Jeff’s impression because even when she recites “prevent online predators” rhetoric like “They teach us young things not to drink anything we haven’t mixed ourselves,” he still keeps her around. She’s far from innocent, though, and he should have taken her advice. When he wakes up from her drugging, little Hayley has transformed from emo teen to hard-assed torturer. He’s tied to a desk chair, and she spends the majority of her time wheeling him around his house, searching for evidence of his pension for stalking teenagers online.
Because Hayley’s the one that drags him far over the line, we should spend the movie wondering just how bad Jeff is. Has he inappropriately touched teenage girls, especially since his house is covered in half-naked photos, or does he draw the line at talking? Unfortunately, Slade shows his hand too early and teases us with a missing girl subplot. Surely Slade wouldn’t tease us with a red herring, would he? It is a little hard to judge, because even when Jeff is faced with Hayley’s psychopathic idea of “public good” surgery, he maintains his innocence. Is the guy tied up really a brutal molester, or should Hayley sign up for an “American Psycho” sequel?
This second act does occasionally stumble, but Page is already enough of a pro to keep it on point. Set to make the leap to the mainstream as Shadowcat in “X-Men: The Last Stand,” Page was just a 16-year-old unknown when she signed on, but she seems like she’s been doing this for years. When Hayley’s teasing Jeff with sending e-mails exposing his secret, she reads her words as if she is a naïve nymph suckered by an online pervert, not the manipulator that’s beaten the stalker at his own game. When she finishes her e-mail, she turns to Jeff and asks if sounded vapid enough. Although her motives may be noble, there’s no denying that Hayley is a psychopathic sadist. She enjoys torturing Jeff, whether it’s physically threatening him with a scalpel, verbally abusing him and teasing him by slowing saying words like “juicy,” yet Page is so skilled, we never stop empathizing with her. Wilson is solid as her prey, even eliciting a little sympathy when we start to wonder if Jeff is telling the truth, but he’s no match for Page. No matter if she’s pretending to be the sweet teen or acting as the sadistic torturer, she is clearly in control.
The most surreal aspect of a movie like this is being asked the question, “Is it good?” Can we really claim a movie about pedophiles is good, the same rating we offer innocent kids movies and stupid comedies? Can we really claim “Hard Candy” is good when the experience of watching it is a little like torture itself? Make no mistake, “Hard Candy” is a tough picture to watch, which may be why it’s so worth watching.When the cast list of a movie is only five names long, three of which are little more than cameos (one by Sandra Oh), it takes talented actors to make a 103-minute movie entertaining. But Page and Wilson’s cat-and-mouse game, though often disturbing, is so distressing, it’s impossible to ignore.
link directly to this review at https://www.hollywoodbitchslap.com/review.php?movie=11287&reviewer=401
originally posted: 04/23/06 22:04:59
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OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2005 Sundance Film Festival. For more in the 2005 Sundance Film Festival series, click here.
OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2006 South By Southwest Film Festival For more in the 2006 South By Southwest Film Festival series, click here.
OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2006 Florida Film Festival For more in the 2006 Florida Film Festival series, click here.
OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2006 Philadelphia Film Festival For more in the 2006 Philadelphia Film Festival series, click here.
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USA
14-Apr-2006 (R)
DVD: 19-Sep-2006
UK
16-Jun-2006 (18)
Australia
13-Jul-2006 (R)
![[trailer]](/images/icon/trailericon.gif) Trailer
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