Hard Candy
March 21st 2008 07:40
Hard Candy
Director: David Slade
Released in Australia: July 2006
Star rating: ****
Fourteen year-old Hayley (Ellen Page currently screening in a theatre near you as Juno) and thirty-two year-old Jeff (Patrick Wilson) chat suggestively in internet chat rooms, and try to make emoticons erotic. They decide to meet at a nearby café. He’s trendily handsome, and doesn’t wear a dirty trench coat or leer as the pedophile stereotype promises. She appears taken by his maturity, good looks, and his attention to her. She invites herself to his home, and you to squirm in your seat.
Hard Candy is staged to present Hayley as the victim, the ingénue, but she outsmarts her predator with her gumption. Her plan is to wreak vengeance on internet pedophiles. Not only does she do it with words, but with a violently twisted psychological mind play, and medical implements. Hayley has done her homework and knows that Jeff had something to do with the murder of a young girl.
Theatrically intense, the off-screen shocking scenes make the audience’s imagination imagine the worst.
There is a surreal sense of claustrophobia as the situation unfolds in Jeff’s apartment. The rest of the world seems distant. The camera manically follows Hayley’s plotting and the cuttingly succinct dialogue. Always question the kindness of strangers.
Director: David Slade
Released in Australia: July 2006
Star rating: ****
Fourteen year-old Hayley (Ellen Page currently screening in a theatre near you as Juno) and thirty-two year-old Jeff (Patrick Wilson) chat suggestively in internet chat rooms, and try to make emoticons erotic. They decide to meet at a nearby café. He’s trendily handsome, and doesn’t wear a dirty trench coat or leer as the pedophile stereotype promises. She appears taken by his maturity, good looks, and his attention to her. She invites herself to his home, and you to squirm in your seat.
Theatrically intense, the off-screen shocking scenes make the audience’s imagination imagine the worst.
There is a surreal sense of claustrophobia as the situation unfolds in Jeff’s apartment. The rest of the world seems distant. The camera manically follows Hayley’s plotting and the cuttingly succinct dialogue. Always question the kindness of strangers.
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Comment by Harry
World Art
Sydney Diary
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Comment by Anonymous
As they say, it stays with you.
Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
I really loved this movie, found it gripping, intense and provocative.
If your interested you can read the review I did for Hard Candy on my blog HERE