Hard Candy

2 years ago when I first heard about this movie, I was immediately intrigued. The movie is about a fourteen year old girl who meets thirty something guy on-line, then they meet in person and the audience is supposed to believe that this girl is innocent and sweet. Of course, things take an interesting turn and the film becomes something totally different. Ellen Page (X-Men3) stars as the girl and the brilliance of this film is in casting her. One would almost expect a sex pot to be cast or perhaps a girl who looked a lot older than the 14 yrs this girl is supposed to be, but Ellen looks every bit of 14 and is an impish tomboy. She plays up her innocence, even in the opening flirting scenes but then makes a remarkable transformation to vindictive and vengeful vixen. Patrick Wilson ( Phantom of the Opera) plays the creepy photographer wonderfully. Granted, for the last hr all he really does is beg, plead and sweat, but there are moments when he actually made me think he might not be the guy the girl thinks he is.


The argument could be made that this movie isn't about these two characters. The movie plays as if Ellen is a symbol for every person who was ever molested, or even more so, she could be representing any person who has ever been raped or nearly raped and is tired of being a victim. Whereas Wilson symbolizes every single disgusting pedophile that ever existed. The movie plays as a cat and mouse type movie, except the person you expect to be the cat is actually the mouse. You see what happens when the predator becomes the prey and when the prey is smarter than your average fourteen year old girl. This line of dialogue kind of sums up what this movie is about:


Hayley Stark: I don't know that's that whole nature versus nurture question isn't? Was I born a cute vindictive little bitch or... Did society make me that way? I go back and forth on that...


The movie isn't perfect suffering from a music video director who sometimes doesn't trust his two actors. He resorts to that overly done shaky camera syndrome, to make his point that the girl is freaking out, when it was noticeable in her face. It detracts from the content a bit but the overall acting ultimately makes this movie very much worth the watch. However, there is a scene that no guy should ever really watch. WOW!