Hard Candy - Movie Review

Posted in Off Topic

Hard Candy, the most traumatizing movie on the planet to men and their junk, we bring you the exclusive review! Can you believe we've never done this before? I sure can!



Splitty: I really loved it. I found it fascinating in that it was absolutely gorgeous to watch, colors, design, shots, but very unsettling (in a good way) due to the subject matter and the treatment. I found the timing and unveiling of story great, the sounds and cuts kept me on the edge of my seat as well. The acting was impeccable. The pedophile guy was brilliant and engrossing, fleshing him out as a flawed human being, but with an unforgivable dark place. I was fascinated by the fact that he refused or was unable to admit what he'd done for so very long. I think they revealed just the right amount of what happened to the missing girl. I felt like they balanced the creepy tightrope very well, and almost felt like it was about time a complex movie like this was made.

I also love that you could never predict exactly what was going to happen, but you were always on the edge of your seat imagining what could be next.

Nightmare: Agreed on all accounts. There are no terribly confusing shots in this movie, everything looks planned pretty well. The Pedo's home was unsettling because it was so clean and bright and cheery. I'm like, WTF? And why does he look like my comic-shop guy? It bothered me that apparently no one in the place they meet up at pays any attention to them. Here's this little girl with this 20-something sucking chocolate off her lips, talking about taking pictures of her, taking her to the bathroom to change clothes, all in public, all within earshot, and no one gets suspicious about any thing!?

I found the Creepy Vibe maybe a little too creepy though. I remember having the types of chat-sessions the two main characters were having at the beginning at around that age. It's creepy because it makes me think, wow, I was just screwing around, but what if that person on the other side really did want to do those things to young nubile sexy me? The dialogue is skin-crawlingly gross when applied to a real-life situation, I hope everyone sees this movie. I think young girls especially need to see this and parents need to point-out just how freaking creepy those conversations really are.

Also of note, that first scene of this movie where Hayley (Ellen Page) is cutting the cake with her fork, that is the most sexually-charged cake-cutting I have EVER seen. That one scene set the tone for the entire movie. Splitty, find us a cake!

Splitty: Of course I love the fact she dispensed justice, however I felt like it was somewhat of a selfish act on her part. Perhaps I would have liked a little more of a hint that she had suffered the same abuse and was excising her demons. Certainly the community and family would have had their minds set at ease to have known the missing girls' fate and that the perps were caught. Even though the justice she gave was more fitting and almost too brutal, you'd think the families should know.

Nightmare: See, I like that we know very little about the characters, because that adds realism I think. We don't know who the Pedophiles really are, we don't know who Hayley is or why she's doing this to the Pedo, she is a mystery, she's an unknown force that declares "I'm going to do this and there's nothing you can do to stop me." That is awesome. It shatters any hope a man watching this movie may have that no testicles were harmed in the making of this film.

Splitty: Come to think of it, that's one of the things I really enjoyed about the film, I remember thinking so as I was watching it. I get chiefly annoyed when films feed you all the storylines and emotions and you just have to sit back and watch. It was a pleasant change of pace to keep guessing and trying to figure the movie out, and I felt my mind working furiously (but not too hard). And the important questions are chiefly answered later, so it doesn't leave you frustrated at the end [insert sex joke here].

Also, I would have really liked if she had actually cut off the nards, and not just pretended. They actually made that part so hard to understand it took me out of the movie a bit trying to figure it out. I was squinting a the screen and rewinding going 'huh?'. I suppose they didn't want to cross any lines, but HELLO. MOVIE ABOUT PEDOPHILE. Line crossed already. (okay, I'll admit it, I just wanted to see some nards).

Nightmare: Oh Splitty, you know just what to say to a guy <3

Splitty: Also, although I loved the idea they installed at the end that she was some sort of mysterious vigilante roaming about putting murdering pedophiles to their end, it seems kinda glossy idealized and not fitting with the realistic movie. I think it might have been a little better if they'd revealed that she was a friend of the girl who had sussed out what had happened, or at least a previously abused girl living in the vicinity who recognized what happened and did her own detective work to get her own revenge. But it did leave a nice hope (a perverse self-justifying violent vigilante hope).

Right after I finished watching it, fixing those plot points was NOT in my thoughts at all. What was in my thoughts was 'Holy sh*t that was awesome! and disturbing!'. And I marvelled at the complexity of the characters and the pretty scenes I had just seen.

Nightmare: I still like the idea that she is a free-roaming nard-knifing heroine. True, it does conflict with the movie's "realistic theme", but I'll take Ellen Page's junk-slashing side anytime.

And you've got a twisted sense of what "pretty scenes" are, lady!

Splitty: Yes I do.

This was a great movie, any flick that makes you queasy, happy, hungry, horny, and sad, often at the same time, deserves praise, or at least a quick pseudo-review by two freaks on the internet!