Hard Candy

[Hyfi]

OK, this is not a new movie but new to me. After enjoying Ellen Page in Juno, I set out to watch as many of her flicks as I can find.

Hard Candy is one intense movie with only 2 characters throughout except for one short scene with a neighbor at the door. If you liked Misery, you may like this one but guys, it's gonna make you cringe what she does to the guy.

Short description:
14 y/old Haley meets 30 something Jeff in a chat room and they get friendly to the point where she asks to meet him and gets him to take her to his home.

Turns out Jeff is somewhat of a pedophile / photographer whose walls are lined with pics of underage girls. He swears he just takes pictures. Haley ends up drugging Jeff and when he wakes up he is tied up. This is where it starts to hurt just watching this flick. My wife bagged out at this point.

By the end of the movie Jeff admits to a few things but the biggest twist to the movie was at the end.




SPOILER-DON'T READ BELOW IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW THE TWIST

As Haley convinces Jeff to off himself, instead of his old girlfriend finding everything out, he tells her he was actually there when a girl Haley knew was killed but he didn't do it, just watched. Haley tells him she knows who it was and that he said the same thing just before he died. So, it turns out that this little innocent teenage girl, already took care of the first guy in a similar fashion and had Jeff's fate totally calculated out well in advance.


Ellen Page plays a totally convincing part here for a 16 year old actress but I don't know how she pulled this off so convincingly.

[ForeverAutumn]

Thanks for the review Hyfi. I rewatched Juno a couple of nights ago. I had already seen it, but Hubby hadn't and wanted to watch it so I joined him. It's such a great little movie and Ellen Page is adorable in it (so is Jason Bateman, I might add ).

I'm interested now to see Hard Candy. It sounds like the kind of quirky, twisted movie that Hubby and I love to watch.

[Gerald Cooperberg]

Hard Candy is great and was my introduction to Ellen Page when it first came out. She gives a riveting, virtuoso performance. Patrick Wilson should be proud of his work too but it's her film. The direction definitely makes it uncomfortable to watch-- saturated color, lots of rotating, unbroken shots that give it a very visceral quality. It's fun to pick out all the Little Red Riding Hood/Big Bad Wolf allusions throughout the movie, too.

-Coop

[Worf101]

I loved this movie and truly enjoyed the idea of "turning the tables" on some of the smarmy bastiges that prey on the young and defenseless. Great filmmaking as the movie could've been quite claustriphobic and stilted in that lmiited sets are used but the director made it work. Deeply disturbing flick..

Worf

[poppachubby]

Ya I've seen Hard Candy some time ago. Good flick. Have you seen Ellen Page's work in The Trailer Park Boy's? She played Jim Lahey's daughter for a season, or maybe 2. She was REALLY young...

[Hyfi]

Ya I've seen Hard Candy some time ago. Good flick. Have you seen Ellen Page's work in The Trailer Park Boy's? She played Jim Lahey's daughter for a season, or maybe 2. She was REALLY young...

I have not seen that yet. I just watched The Tracey Fragments which I will post about. Next up is Mouth to Mouth.