Hard Candy Movie Review

Director: David Slade

Writer: Brian Nelson

Cast: Patrick Wilson, Ellen Page & other characters that weren't given nearly enough screen time for mentioning

Released: June 2005



****SPOILER ALERT****

From the director of The Twilight Saga: Eclipse and a bunch of rock band music videos comes an underground Indie "Horror" film that is filled with way too much talking. That is how I felt when watching this movie last night. Now I'm all for the psychological warfare that goes on in certain films but Hard Candy didn't even play on that concept. It was more like just random ramblings from a teenage Hayley (played by Ellen Page) and watching Jeff (played by Patrick Wilson) being tied up waiting for an inevitable castration. So let's start from the beginning of this story of a teenager trying to play God with a man's life. And trust me, it is not going to take long...

The movie begins by showing an online chat taking place between what we know at the time to be a male and female. We don't realize their ages until the girl at one point says she will have her older sister drop her off at the place they agree to meet up. So they already want us to figure out that it's obviously an underage girl talking to an older guy on the Internet. It seems to fit in this day and age of social networking where all our interactions take place on the web. At the same time, it's putting that fear and realization inside us of what could potentially happen while meeting someone from online. Hell, we even assume right away that it's going to turn out to be the older guy who is bad news. Especially since there are numerous sexual innuendos that take place during chatting. That's the way it works right? Well, not in this film.

Ellen Page's character Hayley, is fourteen years old we find out and has been talking to the thirty-two year old Jeff. They agree to meet up at a coffee shop for the first time where we still are led to the impression that all is as it seems. She's just an innocent young teenager who we start feeling sorry for because you know something is going to happen with this Jeff character and not in a good way. From the start, Hayley is already rambling too much but more like a teenager in your face. Innocent and prone for online predators. Jeff is a photographer who makes it seem like models are his main pieces of work. Together, they appear to mesh well but as viewers, we can't help getting that feeling that something is going to go wrong. The thirty-two year old photographer must have some kind of hidden agenda as to what he's going to do with this teenage girl. He showers her in compliments, claims to adore the same type of music and even ends up buying her a t-shirt that she really wants. Everything that an online predator would probably do, he is doing. He even invites her back to his place but in an undertone sense as if she shouldn't actually do it. Not to much of my surprise, Hayley agrees to go back to his place making it seem like it's all her decision because he wouldn't dare do anything to her. In fact, it's here in the movie where we are suppose to start thinking she is the real manipulator. From teasing Jeff inside the coffee shop bathroom to reasoning with him how he wouldn't take advantage of her, the hints started showing. Alas, they take off together to go back to his place.

Cut to his house, the movie still tries to set the tone of just your average teenager who is blinded by online romance. She still can't stop talking...and even tells Jeff that she couldn't accept the water from him because she was taught to never accept a drink she didn't mix herself. She has to be innocent right? Instead, she proceeds to make drinks for them both and not just water but screwdrivers (orange juice mixed with vodka). The fact that he doesn't stop her or caution her, instills the feeling that he is just another sick twisted pedophile. However, at the same time, I couldn't help feeling that he was coming off as too nice of a guy to cause any harm. At least that's how I felt personally but I still assumed he was the bad guy like most other people would. I mean after all, even his house portrayed all the photographs he had taken of young girls posing as models. Their flirtations continue (more so from Hayley's end) to the point where Hayley requests for Jeff to take pictures of her like one of his models. When he gets his camera, she insists of taking the photos out in his living room where she is jumping around crazily on the couch provoking him the whole time. Jeff appears to start not feeling well as he becomes unstable and ends up collapsing on the floor.

Cut to him waking up bound to a chair and who is the real culprit of this movie other than...dun dun dun...that's right! Miss Ellen Page herself. It turns out that she was the one who was setting up Jeff the entire time. Why? Well according to her, he is just another no good pedophile that deserves some kind of punishment. So what does she do? Honestly, nothing at first but leaving him tied to the chair while she goes on and on and on and on and on about his pedophilia and other random bullshit. We are forced to watch at least over an hour of nonstop talking and pleading before his actual punishment starts to be enforced. She decides that the only way to punish him at first was to castrate him in which he ends up performing the entire procedure by herself. We're expected to believe that a fourteen year old not only completes a medical procedure alone without any previous training, but that she does it with a perfect outcome. So much so that several moments later (in movie time), Jeff is able to free himself and even starts walking around looking for vengeance no less. Now for someone who was told not to have any appointments for the next few days due to the pain he was going to experience like none other before, he certainly was able to walk pretty damn good after having his balls cut off.

Despite all the far-fetched ideas of this movie, I actually started feeling bad for this Jeff character. He seemed to be pretty innocent compared to what Hayley was trying to make him out to be. Yes, he was using young girls as models. Yes, it does turn out that he was involved in the disappearance of another young girl who as it turns out, is dead. However, it sounds like he was just being naive in those situations and claimed it was all about the photography. Hayley on the other hand, concocts evidence to make it appear he was nothing but a pedophile. Now whether he actually was or not, I'm still kind of unclear about myself. Throughout him getting free various times and going after her, she is still playing a setup game. Her claim of letting him go after the castration didn't turn out that way. Instead, she gives him two choices: 1) she will destroy all the "evidence" that points to his pedophilia but only if he kills himself or 2) let everyone find out that he is a pedophile through the "evidence" she setup and have his reputation tarnished along with obvious jail time. More than once he tells her to just call the police and he would tell them anything she wanted him to. But when a special lady of Jeff's comes into the picture, he starts to second guess himself. Apparently this woman is so special to him that he doesn't want her to find out what he has done.

Cut to the rooftop where Hayley and Jeff play a few rounds of back and forth pleading with each other. He pleads for his life and she pleads that he just take it and that she will make all the evidence go away if he follows through.

I won't totally spoil the outcome of the movie for those who wish to actually see it but it does mess with our mind in the sense that we shouldn't let our assumptions get the best of us. Not everything is always as it appears to be within a movie. We need to take a step back and really analyze the plot and what is going on in various scenes. I will give Hard Candy a plus for the twist factor but overall it was just dull to me. Again, way too much pointless talking and not enough action for one who claims to have the horror genre stapled to it. Another thing that has me feeling uncertain is the acting of Ellen Page in this movie. Most of the time, I thought she was being too dramatic for the situations like going over the top. I found myself almost laughing at it but also annoyed at the same time. I definitely think Patrick Wilson had the better acting in this film.

My Final Rating: 2 1/2 out of 5**