Starring: Patrick Wilson, Ellen Page, Sandra Oh, Odessa Rae, Gilbert John Directed By: David Slade Average Rating: Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Audience Rating: R (Restricted) Binding: DVD Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC Label: Lions Gate Number of Items: 1 Region Code: 1 Release Date: September 19, 2006 Running Time: 105 minutes Theatrical Release Date: April 14, 2006
Product Description: "Two Thumbs Up." - Ebert & RoeperA 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.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: HORROR Rating: R UPC: 031398201168 Manufacturer No: 20116
Amazon.com: 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
Not just thrilling... beautifully elegant I see a lot of reviews about the story... which IS great. But what really drew me into this film were the cinematography and sound. The cinematography is amazing and used as an asset to the storytelling. I didn't even notice it for the first 20min or so, but the shift in visual tone with the shift in the emotional tone is just amazing and adds another dimension to the expression. As for the sound, what impressed me was the lack of it. So many movies fill the background with music, usually to guide the audience in feeling the mood. But sometimes emotion is conveyed so much more powerfully without the aural hint at how we SHOULD feel. In the commentary, they even mention how they did this so that the viewer would be allowed to soak in the moment and respond/feel according to their own inner attitude. I think it makes the intense moments all that more intense. Overall, an incredible piece of art.
great movie it keeps you interested Great movie! It did keep me on the edge of my seat,I still want to know her motives behind everything.
Scary movie with a questionable message (SPOILERS) Solid acting by Ellen Page, who carries this off without a hitch - although in some ways you wonder how a teenage girl could be sophisticated like this. Entertaining, and a bit of a nail biter.
SPOLER ALERT --- Don't read this if you haven't seen the movie, or care to be surprised There's some fundamental part of the movie I really dislike, and it's the only reason I've bothered to post on this film (there are much better films I have seen recently, none as deserving of a social commentary however).
The child molester becomes the victim of a psychopathic killer child, and that's just wrong. At any point in the movie, he could've killed her in self-defense, and you would've sighed a breath of relief. Of course you don't know the big secret at the end (well, in fact, you're guessing it earlier when he does escape and doesn't call the police, which he should of). And the child loses all innocence when she tortures him, and then plans to stage his suicide. Which she finally gets by his consent, through coercion - getting him to hang himself so that she won't reveal his kiddie porn collection to his childhood sweetheart. And this again crosses the line - the evidence it turns out includes a photo linking him to a child-rape-murder victim, and as such should've been given to the police, with the other information she had, that would've meant a conviction, and under the circumstances execution. Legal execution, with the victim's family not having justice snatched from them. A trial exposing him; societal catharsis.
There is no satisfaction in finding the murderer of your daughter killed himself. I really dislike the vigilante nature of the film, and how it goes even further in suggesting that teenage girls like this are sophisticated enough to commit this type of crime. If they're really that sophisticated (and they are not) then he is less of a villain for attempting her seduction. This 14 year old girl he picks up on the internet has in fact been stalking him? She has inside information that he was involved in a snuff photo-shoot? If it were true, her premeditated ability and uncanny intelligence combined with her monstrous acts would make her a candidate for the death penalty herself. It does a great disservice to potential victims of these crimes in that it paints a picture of a grown intelligent person, instead of the mere child they are.
In the final analysis Haley is a monster of equal proportion to him, and perhaps more so for subverting justice. A great film, with an ugly and incorrect message. The monster was, and should have firmly remained, the molester, not his intended victim. In the end we are left with two monsters, one of which reinforces the twisted viewpoint that minors are mature enough for sexual involvement, which they certainly are not.
Ellen Page is quite the actress.....even though she is very young she played the innocent very well. At first I thought this would be about the little girl getting murdered by a pedophile, but it took a while to see that she was out for revenge. It's not quite clear if the young girl he took pictures of being murdered was her girlfriend or just a girl she wanted to avenge. It was well written and acted, and I can see Ellen going on to a fab career in the movies she was terrific.
A good film, but impossible to identify with "Hard Candy" takes the notion of young girls in chat rooms being the prey of pedophiles and turns it on its head by having a young girl stalking pedophiles in chat rooms. At the start of this film, 14 year old Hayley (Ellen Page) meets up with 30 year old Jeff (Patrick Wilson), a man she met in a chat room, but rather than becoming yet another victim of child abuse, Hayley takes matters into her own hands, and pretty soon it's Jeff who's begging for mercy and not Hayley.
"Hard Candy" is not the sort of film you watch for fun. In spite of what you might have read in other reviews, this is not another gore-porn (there is actually very little blood in the film), but from a psychological point of view, it is a difficult movie to watch. While watching this film I saw nothing on screen to make me feel nauseous, and yet at several points I found my hand hovering over the remote because thinking about what was happening, from both characters' points of view, was just too much for me. I'm glad that I did continue, however (for the record, if you can get past a certain scene, that you have probably heard about, in the middle of the film, then you shouldn't have trouble making it to the end), because the ideas raised by this film are very interesting and the concept is possibly the most original that I have heard in a long time.
This film is not without faults, however. One of the main drawbacks of this film is that the characters are impossible for an ordinary person to identify with, or to even sympathize with. It's essentially a two-role film and one of those roles is a pedophile and the other a psychopath. A second drawback is that Patrick Wilson's character spends most of the film tied up and he just isn't a good enough actor to pull it off, nor is the dialogue written for him while tied up strong enough for him to hold his own against Page's psycho. A third drawback is that the characters are clichés. Jeff is your "typical" pedophile and Hayley is your "typical" victim-turned-aggressor. I found myself comparing this film to "Happiness", another film with a pedophile character, and I found the latter to be the better and the far more disturbing film because in "Happiness", writer Todd Solondz did not fall victim to the clichés that "Hard Candy"s writer, Brian Nelson, did.
Overall, I recommend this film, albeit conditionally. If you think that you can handle the themes, then it's worth watching for the questions it raises, but if the concept isn't your cup of tea, then don't feel bad about giving it a miss, because it's not something that I would class as essential viewing.
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