Hard Candy (David Slade, 2006)

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Lino
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 6:18 am
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#1 Post by Lino » Sun Jun 11, 2006 7:15 am

Went to see it yesterday evening and all I can say is, WOW! Definitely the suprise hit movie of the year for me. Thoroughly enjoyable in a very sick way from beginning to end and it also serves as a testament that great cinema can be had with just TWO actors! Never a dull moment, I promise you. Now go see it!

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chaddoli
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#2 Post by chaddoli » Sun Jun 11, 2006 11:39 am

Out of the 25 or so films I've seen released in the US this year, Hard Candy was the worst. Its ridiculous premise, shoddy acting and especially the morality of the film pretty much pushed me over the edge. I don't know how to describe Slade's visual style, other than to say it's show-offy, unnecessary and of no interest. Hard Candy was shitty in pretty much all areas to me (including the horrible, incredibly redundant performances). The lead girl pretty much has one attitude/demeanor that she sticks with for the entire film.

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Lino
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#3 Post by Lino » Sun Jun 11, 2006 3:39 pm

Yes, but wasn't it fun? :D

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HerrSchreck
Joined: Sun Sep 04, 2005 11:46 am

#4 Post by HerrSchreck » Mon Jun 12, 2006 2:04 am

:shock:

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Lino
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#5 Post by Lino » Mon Jun 12, 2006 2:32 am

HerrSchreck wrote::shock:
That is a first, Schreck -- I made you go speechless!

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Barmy
Joined: Mon May 16, 2005 3:59 pm

#6 Post by Barmy » Mon Jun 12, 2006 1:30 pm

Awful--virtually unwatchable. A storyline so implausible it makes X-Men3 look like a documentary. The actress absolutely sucked, but the actor was even worse.

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Michael
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 12:09 pm

#7 Post by Michael » Sun Sep 24, 2006 3:43 pm

Terrible, terrible movie. Its attempt to moralize ruined the whole movie. I despite movies that keep moralizing like this one which keeps drilling in your head that pedophilia is sick throughout the entire movie like we don't know any better.

Skip this one and watch Mysterious Skin.

soma
Joined: Thu Aug 31, 2006 8:40 pm
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#8 Post by soma » Sun Sep 24, 2006 11:57 pm

Agreed, I hated it I'm afraid. Contrived, manipulative (and not in a good way) and forced.

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John Cope
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#9 Post by John Cope » Sun Nov 19, 2006 4:01 am

I finally saw this last week and it's been haunting me ever since. Certainly it's a flawed picture, perhaps even fatally so, but it still manages to communicate its themes in a powerful way and is far more deserving of consideration than some of the above comments would lead you to believe.

At first I was inclined to write it off as its flaws seem significant but time for reflection has softened my stance a bit. This is one of those rare times when I think a very cogent and persuasive argument could be launched to defend virtually all the major criticisms I have. I can imagine these arguments and though they don't lessen the problems I have with Hard Candy they do complicate and frustrate my responses.

To take the above criticisms one at a time (as they also represent some of my own feelings): Is the situation plausible? Well, it's hard to believe I grant you, but by no means impossible. Part of the success of the picture is that, regardless of how contrived you may see the situation, it sets up a scenario in which, by the end, you can see no other alternative for Jeff. His final action makes sense within the parameters as they've been established. Is the deck stacked? Sure, but as I noted earlier that doesn't dilute the power of the ideas as they are communicated. And the very fact that we might put ourselves in Jeff's position long enough to consider his (our) options is remarkable given what we know by then.

Are the performances bad? I've heard a lot of people say so and my own feeling is that I was much more sympathetic to Wilson's performance than I was to Page's. I attributed this to the fact that he comes across as more "in the moment" and communicates all his shifts of attitude with great nuance while Page does seem to be hitting the same note throughout. However, it could be argued that this is very intentional; her own stability is deeply in question after all. Also, given her age and the manner in which she presumably sees herself, the maintainance of a certain hyperbolized theatrical role playing does make sense for Page's character, Hayley. Still, I have to admit that much of her dialogue grated on me and yet that may be because I was, perhaps, inherently more sympathetic to Jeff simply out of gender allegiance--this is possible as it's part of what Slade and company are clearly trying to get us to reflect upon. And yet, Hayley's dialogue in particular does feel forced, or maybe just overwritten. At the very least it calls attention to itself as written and that's the last thing you want in an immersive experience like this. One final note about Page's performance: there are moments, few and far between though they may be, in which she is silent and you can detect dawning realizations which seem to impact her forcefully; these are great moments of performance and call into question the whole intention of the role as written.

As to style--is Slade's style "show-offy" as chaddoli insists? Well, no, I don't think it is. In fact, I think it may be the best compositional style I've seen in a directorial debut this year, save Rian Johnson's elegant and confident work in Brick. It is a very astute technique which seeks to highlight the subtle shifts in features which may or may not denote everything of importance lying just below the surface. Slade's use of close-ups is great as is his framing and camera movement and, most of all, his astonishing use of shifts in color within a shot. Some would say, I'm sure, that these are not subtle techniques but the indeterminacy they evoke most certainly is.

And, finally, morality. I don't want to reopen this can of worms but I would argue strongly that this is a much more aggressively challenging piece in respect to existing moral attitudes than something like Wolf Creek, which uses vaulted existentialist rhetoric to disguise its sadism. Hard Candy is not so easy to pin down. I'm surprised by how many seemed to find the film reprehensible for its "moralizing". I didn't detect much in the way of clear statements of this sort being made. And this is not because the film is clumsy or confused necessarily (though it might be in some respects), but rather because of the hazy, gray zone of complication and compromise it's trying to depict. You can point to examples of instances in which the audience's worst assumptions are realized but those examples don't exist in a vacuum, they are constantly countered by something else which confuses our sympathetic responses. All the same, I would rather not have had the whole former girlfriend sub-plot, though the way it is used is essential and logical. I also question whether the film might have been improved had certain pivotal moments gone differently or had a certain pivotal revelation not been made. These are the questions that remain, but they haunt me all the same and maybe this is enough sign of success.

The DVD, BTW, is excellent, containing a great documentary and two very informative commentary tracks. I'm still unsure about this one but I am grateful for the effort to shake up our pre-conceived assumptions.

Oh, and for more of this kind of cinematic male-female back and forth which you might not have seen, seek out Radha Bharadwaj's superb Closet Land and Beth B's equally superb Two Small Bodies.

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