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List Price: $14.98 | | Label: Lions Gate
Salesrank: 4706
Released: September 19, 2006 |
| Our Price: $6.79 |
| Used Price: $2.44 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
A smart, charming teenage girl, Hayley probably shouldn't be going to a local coffee shop to meet Jeff, a 30-something fashion photographer she met on the Internet. But before she knows it, she's mixing drinks at Jeff's place and stripping for an impromptu photo shoot. It's Jeff's lucky night. But Hayley isn't as innocent as she looks, and the night takes a turn when she begins to impose a hard-hitting investigation on Jeff in an attempt to reveal his possibly scandalous past.
Description of Hard Candy:
The supercharged possibilities of a single set and two amped-up actors are explored in Hard Candy, a twisted cocktail with a poison kicker. After a flirtatious encounter in an online chat room, two people agree to meet for coffee: a 32-year-old man (Patrick Wilson) and a 14-year-old girl (Ellen Page). They quickly advance to his house, and just as quickly, the apparent pedophilic seduction morphs into something else entirely. After the tables turn, Hard Candy becomes a tale of revenge and torture that might have tempted a filmmaker like Park Chanwook. Here, first-time feature director David Slade opts for a slick look that stays close to the actors, and you can't really blame him--this movie is like a conceptual, more-than-slightly unbelievable off-Broadway play, a showcase for actors and "controversial" ideas. Those actors are strong: Patrick Wilson (Angels in America, Phantom of the Opera) is every bit as creepy as he needs to be, and Ellen Page has nothing short of a triumph. The Canadian actress was around 18 when she shot the film, but looks like an adolescent, which makes her authoritative wrath all the more shocking to witness. The provocations of Hard Candy sometimes seem arbitrary or forced, but Page's electrifying performance can't be denied, or dismissed. --Robert Horton
Hard Candy Reviews:
Edge of your seat... 
2009-09-22 - A terrific movie with equally terrific actors. Kept me on the edge of my seat throughout. Ellen Page was perfect for this role before her sweet role in Juno.
Interesting and dark movie 
2009-09-14 - I thought the plot of the movie was weird, but the performances were amazing. I also enjoyed the look of the movie and the way it was directed; very interesting and suspenseful. I would say it is perhaps better as a rental than one to own because I doubt I'll ever be compelled to watch it again, but it was worth watching once since Ellen Page is excellent in it.
Surprise, Surprise, Surprise 
2009-09-12 - This movie never lost my attention! The way the movie progressed was a surprise. A must see. Worth the time spent to watch it.
Totally sick, but compelling
2009-08-07 - ***BEWARE SPOILERS***
***If you read this before seeing the movie, the movie will not be as interesting***
This is a taunt drama of the man bites dog sort in which a precocious 14-year-old girl Hayley (Ellen Page, who was so delightful in Juno (2007)) has her way with photographer Jeff Kohlver (Patrick Wilson) a 32-year-old sickie who specializes in under aged girls. And her way is...well, way extreme. But apparently she has cause.
The vibrant tension that glues us to our seats can only be resolved by finding out if she is right in her accusations or if he is an innocent victim. She is certain. But director David Slade (using a diabolical script from Brian Nelson) keeps us guessing. Hayley seems not merely precocious intellectually, but emotionally more like a grown woman than a 14-year-old. Jeff appears to be a sweet, clever guy any girl would love to love. But she has anything but love in mind. Her scheme of vengeance is well thought out and very well executed. Everything is a twist on the Internet chat room stalker scenario. Instead of the older dude seducing, drugging and taking advantage of the young girl, the young girl turns the tables on him in a horrifying way. What is it that should happen to guys who take advantage of under-aged girls? They should have their ...s cut off. That is exactly what Hayley has in mind.
Or so it seems. Actually, although she says at one point that death is too good for him, she finally settles on getting him to commit suicide. But will he?
I was hoping that Nelson and Slade would have the nerve to really turn the tables and make Hayley the villain and Jeff the innocent victim, and it seems for perhaps three-quarters of the film that this is still possible. We learn that he does have a thing for under aged girls and that is not good, but it isn't enough to justify what he is going through and will go through. And Hayley seems to be some kind of monster with a sick desire of her own. But this all washes out when we discover that no he didn't actually kill the girl. No, he only--as he confesses--FILMED the killing. (Nice touch, that.) And no Hayley does not go through with her Third Reich surgery (although she has brought along a blue surgeon's gown for the operation and has donned it). That would make her just too, too unsavory. Instead she uses her wiles and her physical and psychological control to get him to jump off a roof with a rope around his neck. (Yes, I warned you about spoilers.)
I mention all these essential details because I want to make a point. This is a seduction of the audience film and a kind of black comedy that isn't funny until perhaps you see it for the second or third time--which I am not planning to do. It is absurd in the slasher/horror film manner in which gross human behavior is depicted for the titillation of the audience while maintaining a politically correct stance. A politically incorrect stance would have been to end the film with Jeff innocent and Hayley the sickie. I suspect this film would have met with boycotts from women's groups had Slade done that.
Still the violence is mostly imagined or alluded to. Slade eschews any blood splattering or outright torture. The balls in the garbage disposal are, after all, only in our imagination. And Jeff really does deserve his fate. However there is no getting around the fact that Hayley is not your everyday 14-year-old. I don't think any future suitor would feel comfortable with her knowing what she did to Jeff, evil as he is. In other words, her brand of vigilante justice could only come from somebody who was a bit sick herself.
I think what mesmerized me most about this exercise in fantasy revenge wish fulfillment was the performance of Ellen Page. I thought she was a bit creepy but very effective. She actually could have passed for a 14-year-old (she was 18 when the film was released) yet the words put in her mouth and the actions she performed were well beyond the reach of the vast majority of fourteen year olds. The intense close ups of her face and that of her co-star Patrick Wilson helped to make the characters larger than life, which is one of the things that film can do so very well.
This pointless film disallows suspension of disbelief 
2009-08-01 - Actually, don't let my two-star rating mislead you: The acting is very
strong in this film, but the story and plot are so utterly and
atrociously defective, misguided and self-gratifying as to render the
entire exercise pointless and the viewer wholly unfulfilled.
When you begin to wish death on the leading character within 20 minutes
of the film's exposition, you become aware that you're consumed not
with the story, but the protagonist's (read: antagonist's) immediate
and violent demise.
When I saw Page in "Juno" I thought she acted too old for the
character's age; too self-assured and mature. In this case (now playing
a 14-year-old) the disparity between age and behavior/language is even
greater.
And when this little 14-year-old behaves as if the likelihood of her
being caught is a patent impossibility (as if instructed by the script)
and is always--and without exception--a step ahead of a seemingly
cautious and highly intelligent adult, one can only question the
scriptwriter.
This film disallows suspension of disbelief. A colossal and unmitigated
failure of film-making.
***SPOILER ALERT***
1. How does she find the man in an otherwise anonymous
chat room in the first place?
2. How does she move his limp body, not
just onto a chair, but onto a table? Let alone hanging from a cross
beam? Beyond absurd.
3. How does she not electrocute herself with the stun gun if both are
covered in water from the shower?
4. Where did she learn to handle a
gun so deftly (you can read about gun skills on the web all you want,
but actually holding and operating a heavy pistol is another matter)?
5. Do you think a pedophile would be stupid enough to "hide" a safe in
his coffee table and be such an insufferable fool as to use his chat
room handle as the code?
Brian Nelson (the screenwriter): SHUT UP.
