>>REVIEW
HARD CANDY
STARRING Ellen Page and Patrick Wilson
DIRECTED BY David Slade
Opens Friday, May 19
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Hard Candy is movie that uses sleight of hand in order to redeem itself. If I hadn’t been distracted by the unbearable tension, the witty dialogue, gorgeous cinematography and fearless performances, I might have cared a little more about that. This movie is basically an implausible fable that uses a very realistic and disturbing reality to tell the tale of Little Red Riding Hood and her Wolf.
After some creepy predatory teen chat room flirting, a 32-year-old photographer, Jeff (Patrick Wilson), and a 14-year-old girl, Hayley (Ellen Page), agree to meet face-to-face at a coffee shop. After an hour or so of waxing intellectual, Hayley, who seems "way older than 14," suggests that the two of them go back to Jeff’s house. Once they arrive, Jeff hands her a drink that she politely declines, saying, "They teach us young girls not to accept any drinks we haven’t mixed ourselves" and then offers to mix him a drink instead. He drinks it, passes out and wakes up tied to a chair. For the next hour and a bit, Little Red Riding Hood becomes the Wolf, telling Jeff that she is going to castrate him so he never harms another young girl again.
Hard Candy is a skilfully made movie that challenges viewers by posing questions about pedophilia, crime and punishment. It’s obvious that Jeff has a predilection for young girls, yet when Hayley first ties him to the chair, accusing him of being a monster, there is no evidence to support that claim. Should he be castrated? Is Hayley justified in performing what appears to be preventive medicine? As the movie unfolds, more details come to light and Hard Candy’s intention and thesis become clear. At the beginning of the third act, however, I stopped questioning the characters’s motives and started questioning the validity of the screenplay.
Hard Candy is essentially a two-parter that takes place almost entirely in one setting. Wilson’s work is amazing, but it’s Page who steals the film, giving a thoughtful, textured performance worthy of an Oscar. David Slade’s direction is crisp and taut and the cinematography by Jo Williams is nothing short of stunning – bleeding colour in and out of scenes adds a visceral edge to the film’s dialogue.
Unfortunately, it’s Brian Nelson’s screenplay that fails. The actions in the third act all but negate everything that happened in the second, and what was a marvelous interaction between two skilled performers degenerates into a typical revenge flick. If it wasn’t for the fact that everything else about Hard Candy is perfect, it may have ruined this film completely but it didn’t.
Page is simply astonishing. If you haven’t heard of this talented actor before now, you soon will. Even when the screenplay tries to derail her by reducing her character to a caricature, Page stays the course, giving every word spoken meaning and every action taken validity. |
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