Geophyrd
15-Oct-2007, 12:44 PM
Movie Review: Hard Candy: Just watched this movie last night and I think its the best horror thriller I've seen in years, maybe even a decade. I can't get it out of my mind. I expect I'll revisit this one again over the years, find nuances that I missed or forgot since the last time. I know I'll see its star again. She was marvelous. The title, Hard Candy, supposedly refers to internet slang for underage girls.
Its premise is simple enough. A predator meets a 14 year old for coffee after chatting her up in internet chat rooms. In the coffee shop, there's notice of a missing girl. He has a CD she wants to hear and she goes home with him and that, 5 minutes into the flick, was the last predictable thing in the movie. I don't want to go into more, just that if it was me who was in that situation, I'd never have had a chance. That's not a spoiler, but if you think it might be, you need to see the movie.
The breakout star of the movie is a Canadian actress named Ellen Page, who played Kitty Pryde in the last Xmen movie. If you thought her character was slippery then...that was nothing as to her part in the movie. It was unforgettable, such a fierce, strong role. Although she plays 14 in the movie, she was 17 when she filmed it. That's a small comfort in that she is attractive and smart in a very attractive way. To find out she's 17 is only the small of comforts (thank god, she’s not 14…) until you consider that she still wasn’t legal age and that becomes the trope of the director/screenwriter, to draw the men in the audience into the trap that the same desire to cozen the teenaged heroine places them clearly into that loathsome predator's shoes. Its clever and superlatively acted.
To talk of the movie's technical competence, it is filmed in close to extreme close-up. The cinematographer does such an extraordinary job of capturing nuance that I wonder how much of it was directed vs. how it was shot. Maybe they just took so much footage that they could edit it until it worked. The colors (a lot of primary colors, particularly in the beginning of the movie) represent almost a separate person in the movie, conveying mood and foreshadowing in equal measure. Pay attention...clearly the producers/director did not have much of a budget and they put every dime on the screen. A few of the shots were stunning.
This is not an easy movie to watch. Its squirm-inducing and some might argue that it’s not really a horror movie. I answer by repeating. This is the best horror thriller I've seen in years, maybe a decade.
Before I forget, here’s Ebert’s take (http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060427/REVIEWS/60421003/1023) on the flick
Its premise is simple enough. A predator meets a 14 year old for coffee after chatting her up in internet chat rooms. In the coffee shop, there's notice of a missing girl. He has a CD she wants to hear and she goes home with him and that, 5 minutes into the flick, was the last predictable thing in the movie. I don't want to go into more, just that if it was me who was in that situation, I'd never have had a chance. That's not a spoiler, but if you think it might be, you need to see the movie.
The breakout star of the movie is a Canadian actress named Ellen Page, who played Kitty Pryde in the last Xmen movie. If you thought her character was slippery then...that was nothing as to her part in the movie. It was unforgettable, such a fierce, strong role. Although she plays 14 in the movie, she was 17 when she filmed it. That's a small comfort in that she is attractive and smart in a very attractive way. To find out she's 17 is only the small of comforts (thank god, she’s not 14…) until you consider that she still wasn’t legal age and that becomes the trope of the director/screenwriter, to draw the men in the audience into the trap that the same desire to cozen the teenaged heroine places them clearly into that loathsome predator's shoes. Its clever and superlatively acted.
To talk of the movie's technical competence, it is filmed in close to extreme close-up. The cinematographer does such an extraordinary job of capturing nuance that I wonder how much of it was directed vs. how it was shot. Maybe they just took so much footage that they could edit it until it worked. The colors (a lot of primary colors, particularly in the beginning of the movie) represent almost a separate person in the movie, conveying mood and foreshadowing in equal measure. Pay attention...clearly the producers/director did not have much of a budget and they put every dime on the screen. A few of the shots were stunning.
This is not an easy movie to watch. Its squirm-inducing and some might argue that it’s not really a horror movie. I answer by repeating. This is the best horror thriller I've seen in years, maybe a decade.
Before I forget, here’s Ebert’s take (http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060427/REVIEWS/60421003/1023) on the flick