Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Hard Candy

Rating : 4/5
Hard Candy is an intense psychological drama, with incredible performances by both Ellen Page and Patrick Wilson. The two actors are practically the only two people with lines in the film, aside from some brief appearances by Sandra Oh and Jennifer Holmes. Thusfar I have only seen Wilson in The Alamo and Phantom of the Opera, but I was blown away with how he handled this performance. The slow, suspenseful film is set mainly in the Los Angeles home of photographer Jeff, a 32 year old man whom Hayley, a mature 14 year old girl who met him online, suspects to be a pedophile. The pacing was steady, and phenomenal - after a brief exposition we get into the real suspense about 20 minutes into the film, and it doesn't let up from there. The cinematography and camera work went excellently with the film. Rather than being extremely gory, the adult themes of the film lead to a more psychological creepiness. There are also questions that remain unanswered until the end of the film, when everything is wrapped up nicely - leaving you puzzled to the true identities and motives of the characters throughout most of the duration.

Horror films are not my cup of tea, but psychological drama is. A powerful yet disturbing film that touches on a subject matter that is constantly being ignored in our world but be warned this film is definitely not for the weak hearted crowd.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Watched this one again last weekend to show my brother in law. He rated in 4 stars, I rated it 4.5stars. I was reading the trivia on this film and at one point, although the idea was shelved, the producers wanted her to reveal she was actually 18 and not 14. Who knows, but she certainly had an intricate plan made up, one that kept me on the edge of my seat for the duration of the movie

Anonymous said...

nice movie, good review. Its a nice site you have.