Hard Candy Reviews

Totally gripping

This is a tense, edge-of-the-seat two-hander that hits you hard and keeps you guessing right up to the very end. It constantly toys with your emotions, swinging sympathy back and forth between the two characters as their roles shift continuously from predator to prey and back again. Page and Wilson are both breathtakingly good in their parts. Most of the film is played out in long, tight close-ups of their sweating faces, picking out every nuance and look of fear. A tough-as-nails, scary-as-hell movie that really isn't for the faint-hearted, although it does (thankfully) follow the often forgotten rule that what's implied is a hell of a lot more powerful than what's shown.

Pathetic attempt to win contoversy points

This film epitomizes controversy over content and watching it is to waste 120 precious minutes better spent doing... [Insert anything here]. The heroine is so vacuous, nauseating and badly characterized that in the films closing minuites as the director is desperately trying to weave in the plot. I was left pondering how to moralize a victory for our despicable but marginally more intriguing villain. In short: to call this film garbage is an insult to garbage.

You wont have seen anything like this before

Refreshingly different, Gripping, Controversial, disturbing, unpredictable and what a fantastic little actor Ellen Page is, she deserves a gong of some sort for this. I was absorbed by it, it was original and i didn't know where the plot was going so it kept me entertained right til the end. Ellen Page was awesome and the other guy was good too (a lookalike cross between Midge Ure and Kevin Costner!). I recommend u to watch this, one of the best i've hired yet from easy DVD

[Highly rated reviewer]

Hard Candy

I don't want to say much about the happenings of this film, for fear of spoiling it. Suffice to say that it's a two handed power play between 14 year old Hayley (Ellen Page) and 32 year old Jeff (Patrick Wilson) the two meet on the internet before getting together at a coffee shop and then back at Jeff's house where things take a turn for the unexpected.

The screenplay, by first time feature writer Brian Nelson, is outstanding. Packed with memeorable lines, the blackest of comedy and shocking revelations about both his main characters it keeps you nailed to the edge of your seat.

Another massive help in that is the performances. For over an hour the only people we see for any length of time are Hayley and Jeff so Page and Wilson must carry the film. Page is simply extraordinary, every line delivered at perfect pitch but never once winking at the audience on the comedy, it's an incredibly intense performance and one that belies her tender age (perhaps 17 at shooting). Were there any justice her mantelpiece wold now be groaning under the weight of the awards she's won for the part, but Hard Candy isn't the kind of movie that wins awards.

Patrick Wilson is also great. He's not able, after the first 20 minutes or so, to use much besides his face and voice to give a peformance but still peels back the layers of his character in horribly compelling fashion.

Perhaps the cleverest aspect of Nelson's screenplay is the way in which it plays with our loyalties. Some will come out of the film on Hayley's side, some on Jeff's, some simply appalled.

Director David Slade (another debutante with a big future) shoots almost the entire film in tight close up. This gives the whole thing, right from the start, an uncomfortable intimacy. He shows us little, implies almost everything before throwing our assumptions back at us in often shocking fashion.

This is one of the best horror films to grace the cinema in a long time and can stand proudly alongside the genre's true classics. It will be an uncomfortable experience (several people left during the operation sequence in my screening) but it won't be one you'll soon forget and that's all too rare these days.

Faultless and intelligent

A unique, claustrophobic and incredibly clever piece of faultless, and important, film making.

Don't rent this film if you find the subject matter of child pornography 'titilating' - it is not that kind of film. Don't rent this film if you simply want a gory, pointless 'horror' movie - it's far from that sort of film.

If you enjoy intelligent, thought provoking subject matter, and appreciate incredible acting, writing and direction - not to mention a healthy dose of black humour (think 'Dead Man's Shoes', this is the film for you.

This film will stay with you for a long time after watching it. And it should.

You really just don't look like kind of guy who needs to meet girls over the internet.

Hard Candy was always destined to be contraversial since it deals with possibly the most touchy subject that isn't talked about in western culture: pedophilia. So first of all let me set your minds at ease a little; unlike Lolita and it's many copies there is no overt sexual action shown in this movie other than the suggestive flirting of 14 year old Hayley. Don't let that lull you into a false sense of security though, this movie is still uncomfortable to watch.

A large part of that discomfort comes from the internal conflict that builds throughout the movie that leaves you wondering which of the two characters you should feel sympathy for. Should you sympathise with Jeff, the 32 year old who has been grooming 14 year old Hayley in Internet chatrooms for weeks before arranging to meet her then ending up plying her with alcohol at his house? Or should you sympathise with Hayley whose suggestive sexuality starts to fade into deep psychosis? The character development of this movie will lift you well and truly out of your comfort zone and drop you in a moral and ethical powerstruggle between two evils. Is mild mannered Jeff as innocent as he proclaims to be, or is Hayleys retribution riteous?

The acting in Hard Candy is top notch, with both stars giving everything they have got and doing a stellar job in the process. Considering Patric Wilson reportedly passed out briefly while shooting one particularly gruelling scene (those who have seen the movie will know which one!) it's probably for the best that this movie was shot in only 18 days! Both actors play the many layers of their characters brilliantly, so that in almost every shot you can feel a darkness simmering below the surface, like a slow burning fuse reflected in their eyes. Despite this both characters are on the surface entirely believable, Jeff is a semi-successful 30 something photographer and Hayley is a typical teenage girl chatting on Internet chatrooms and making movie-dates with friends - you could imagine them as neighbours living on either side of you. Even as their darker sides are revealed both characters remain in the realms of credibility, with both parties making mistakes fuelled by either over-confidence or desperation.

That simmering is something that continues through the whole film, with the suspense and tension building higher and higher as the story continues and more things are revealed. The viewer is pretty much constantly pinned to the seat by what's happening on screen but luckily the seriousness of the movie is peppered with a little light ausement mainly provided by Hayley's twisted sense of humour.

The directing and cinematography of Hard Candy are similarly spectacular. Gone are the soft focus and flattering lights that we have come to expect from hollywood (even for the horror films) and instead we have cold naturalistic tones contrasting brilliantly with the bold colours of Jeff's apartment decor. What we're left with is almost documentary style visuals which contributes further to the feeling of being let in on the dirty secrets of both characters that would normally be kept safely behind closed doors. This goes hand in hand with the excellent teasing of what is hinted at rather than shown, in fact it is what is not shown that is possibly the most harrowing part of this movie. This is a refreshing break from the bubble-gum I-need-everything-on-a-plate fiction that has been spewing out of America for so long! Almost the entirety of the movie is set in one location (Jeffs house), and just the two people. This really gives you time to get personal with the characters and examine the details of the set, such as the relevance of the portraits that photographer Jeff has hung around his home.

In summary this film is simply brillant on all levels, and a personal favourite of mine. However due to the contraversial content and the lack of defined boundaries between good and evil, hero and victim, many will find this an uncomfortable movie to watch. This is a movie possibly better watched alone, when you can let yourself surf the moral grey wave without having to be self conscious about what other people in the room are thinking. The only downside I found was that the moral grey area that makes the movie so uncomfortable and exciting to watch is 'resolved' at the end of the movie, leaving the viewer with no real testing questions to go away with.

Rubbish !

I was so looking forward to watching this after reading rave reviews. I wish I hadn't bothered ! It wasn't gripping, it wasn't scary, and the only time it had me on the edge of my seat was when I nearly fell off it because I nodded off !

Don't bother !

Polarising

In case you're wondering how this film can split people on this site so much into loving it or hating it then this 'review' I found under 'hated it' is representative of those who hated it

'Well, the girl keep making him suffer, and the guy takes no revenge at the end, thats the worst movie I have eve seen in my life. The writer is sure empty minded.

Worst movie eveerrrr'

In other words the people that hated it are er...... not very bright.

If you have any appreciation of great cinema however, it's a film you'll find riveting original and haunting

Hard Candy- Eye Candy

A must see thriller. A story which consists of a clear beginning, middle and end. The film was thrilling, gripping and serendipity has never been prtreyed so pure. A real hit with me and if you like pure genius entertainment, a hit with you!

Enjoy.......

Hard Candy

Following the disappearance of a local girl, Haley 14, meets a man she befriends in an Internet chatroom. Neither are the likeable characters they first appear and tension mounts after she goes back to his home, with dire consequences. This is a riveting watch, shocking in parts, with superb acting and great dialogue, which reveals the inner workings of a mind truly mad.