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Directed by: David Slade Starring: Ellen Page, Patrick Wilson This movie could have been so much better. After the opening twist, I had really high hopes for where the plot was going. It was very suspenseful for about an hour, the chemistry between Page and Wilson was excellent, but it just all went downhill after we find out that he didn't really get castrated. From that point on, everything was nonsensical and anticlimactic. It's like the writer had a huge brain fart when he was looking for a way to end the film. It started off as an intelligent thriller, but turned into a scatterbrained moral tale. I was really disappointed that this movie was such a huge letdown. I suppose its worth admission for the first half, but the second half is really unsatisfactory. 2.5/5 RATING: 2.5 PROS: The first half CONS: The second half ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: http://imdb.com/title/tt0424136/ Vernacular fucked around with this message at 09:44 on Apr 16, 2006 |
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Apr 16, 2006 09:22
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I saw this movie last month at South by Southwest and liked it. It's a solid film. My favorite aspect is how my allegiance switched back and forth between the characters a number of times. It's really tense at times and the fact that it's basically two characters the whole time and actually remains engaging is fantastic. The color in the film is also really cool, it's constantly changing to reflect the mood of the film (alright, that's a bit film geeky of me). Overall though, Hard Candy is a good film from a first time director.
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Apr 21, 2006 04:50
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I enjoyed this movie, but it did drag at parts. Ellen Page played a perfect child-psycho. 3.5/5
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May 6, 2006 19:14
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It's really a solid film that had me at the edge of the seat a good lot of the time. Good writing and dialogue, very good acting. A solid film for apparently a really, really modest budget and first-time direction. 4/5
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Jul 26, 2006 23:56
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I really hated this movie. I was rooting for the guy to slice her up for the entire thing, even though he was a gently caress up, the first order of business should be to dismember the little girl. I'd pay to see that. The film, in short, was moralizing and though I can't be sure, the idea that the writer believes in some form of whacked karma and was having too much fun exploring that theme was pretty apparent.
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Jul 30, 2006 21:48
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This movie had some things going for it, but ultimately screwed up bad. There were too many things that were simply unbelievable, and the plot seemed to be "hollywood-ed" to hell. Classic case of a good premise and good production gone awry. I really wanted to be sold on the characters, and while I do think the pedo was very well done, the 14 year old girl was absurd. Her scripting was awful, it was blatantly obvious that she was just a vessel for the writer to have a shot at paedophilia, which is not a necessary, difficult, or thought-provoking task. A lot of her lines felt very melodramatic, staged, and rehearsed, like the kind of clever things that you think about saying and then go "wait, if I say that I'll sound like a wanker who thinks he's delivering a Hollywood monologue". She was about 10 years too smart for her age, and not in the believable, precocious way. She simply had way too much knowledge and articulation, way past the point of "a kid who is smart beyond her years". I wasn't sold on her insanity, I wasn't sold on her intelligence, and I could never ever shake the feeling that the writer simply wrote his own point of view, put it in her mouth, and forgot entirely that she was meant to be a 14 year old girl. (More detailed explanation for pigdog): While there are potential explanations for why she's so smart for her age, I don't think any of them are sufficiently satisfying. The "she was lying about everything" excuse is basically saying "Hey, anything's possible" - it's cheap and allows you to rationalise away anything and everything. Whether the character is meant to be 14, 17, or 19, her lines are simply unconvincing cuz they don't sound like they could be hers. There was one part in particular which was REALLY difficult to watch, and I've sat through Salo, Irreversible, Threads, Happiness, Bully, and a few others that are meant to be pretty dark. I'm referring to the whole castration episode which was very drawn out and very sadistic. So I guess it wins some points for nailing that. The plot was very much a mixed bag. A lot of the elements I thought were rather boring and unimaginative, but there were some great little twists: the involvement of another dude who she's already visited. The introduction of the other girl's murder as a plot element really destroyed the movie for me. At that point it became less of a unique film, and slotted more into a typical "crime / thriller / revenge". I seriously thought this really hurt the film. (More detailed explanation for pigdog): The audience doesn't get told about the other girl's murder until maybe a third of the way in, but it's supposedly the protagonist's motive from the word go. The film was much more interesting when her motive was ambiguous, unexplained, and as such seemed more extraordinary and unusual. When the film started including a murder mystery (albeit a rather straightforward one) as part of its plot, it felt too much like 'just another crime flick'. In terms of film photography, this is a really well done film. But with regards to plot, dialogue, and characters, it could easily have been so much better. It was disappointing to see some of the potential get thrown away. I can really only give it a 2.5 . TCC: Dude, you gotta play miniature golf. Iblys fucked around with this message at 08:34 on Aug 1, 2006 |
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Jul 31, 2006 10:02
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For all it's flaws I enjoyed it. I thought that the two leads were both pretty good, but Ellen Page acted so much better than Patrick Wilson that things didn't seem so evenly matched. A few scenes were meant to be cat-and-mouse but at no point did you ever think that Hayley was not in control. Sandra Oh as the Girl Scout's Mom was both lovely casting and a rather questionable plot point but it is inconsequential to the movie as a whole. Towards the end the film does take a bit of a turn for the worse, and it really doesn't hold up to close scrutiny after the fact, but it's not a big "gently caress you" implausofest like some of the more recent thrillers. The fact that the movie kept me entertained throughout its runtime despite it primarily consisting of two actors in the same room, and succeeded in making me feel uncomfortable and uneasy during "that scene" means that it achieved what it set out to do, which is more than I can say for quite a few "thrillers" of the past few years. It requires some suspension of disbelief but towards the end the film does indicate that the main character is neither 14 nor named Haley and that much of what she has said was false. If you can't get past the idea that a young female that you know nothing about could talk and act in such a manner, then you are probably going to hate it. It's not a classic, but it gets a 4 from me. frumpsnake fucked around with this message at 08:16 on Aug 9, 2006 |
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Aug 1, 2006 03:16
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Bad poster.
Somebody fucked around with this message at 19:28 on Aug 1, 2006 |
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Aug 1, 2006 06:37
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This movie was nuts! But good acting.
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Aug 2, 2006 02:45
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This was a terrible and pointless movie. First of all, it was clearly written by an adult male who did absolutely no research into looking what 14-year-old girls are actually like. The main character was so inauthentic it practically ruined the movie. Every word of dialogue that comes from her mouth is like something a 45-year-old female character in a terrible Lifetime movie would say. 14 years old wasn’t exactly yesterday for me, but Jesus, that is not what it was like. Secondly, the entire focus and moral issue of the movie is completely lost when you find out the guy is a loving murderer IN ADDITION to being a pedophile. I think taking a huge stance against pedophilia was enough. And again, the movie loses all impact when the bad guy is a psycho murderer. The acting is terrible. The lead character looks and acts like some retarded know it all college freshman. And the bad guy/pedophile looks and acts like some 20 something, emo, grad student. Woefully miscast, terribly written, and ultimately pointless. 1/5
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Aug 3, 2006 00:40
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I agree that this was terribly written, A 14 year old girl has not only heard of Goldfrapp but actually likes them?  The whole too smart for her age thing was silly and really ruined the movie for me, and the house the guy lived in screamed set designer with a blank check at Ikea. I thought the ending was stupid as well, had high hopes for this from the trailer but was massively let down. 1/5
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Aug 5, 2006 08:40
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No good review here either. Her character was so grating you desperately wanted the guy to escape and murder her horribly. You could tell what sort of ending was coming after the first half hour. Shame because the trailer looked awesome. 2/5
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Aug 7, 2006 12:28
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Why couldn't they have cast at least a decent looking 14 year old? Not to mention she came off as a prude, pompous bitch (which might have been the point, but I ended up hating her character within 15 mintues of the movie). I agree, after they leave the coffee shop there is no power control switch, it's all the girl. Even so, I was entertained until the end. When she starts coax the guy to kill himself and she'll hide all the evidence about him is where I thought the movie went downhill. From there, both options didn't feel like suitable endings. I was hoping that when Janelle arrived something would develop from there. 3.5/5
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Aug 12, 2006 11:22
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PrincessKate posted:This was a terrible and pointless movie. First of all, it was clearly written by an adult male who did absolutely no research into looking what 14-year-old girls are actually like. The main character was so inauthentic it practically ruined the movie. Every word of dialogue that comes from her mouth is like something a 45-year-old female character in a terrible Lifetime movie would say. 14 years old wasn�t exactly yesterday for me, but Jesus, that is not what it was like. Well I have to seriously disagree with you PrincessKate, aside from the psycho nature I was a very similar 14 year old to Hayley, I look back at my old diary entries and I was probably more articulate and verbose** then than I am now. I know several teenagers of that age who are similar, male and female. I liked the movie a lot, I thought it was refreshing but would have benefited a lot from being at least half an hour shorter. I had expected Jeff to escape and turn the tables at some point and I waited for the cliche and was pleased that it never came. I also found it pretty funny that she talked Jeff into killing himself then ignored her side fo the bargain. All in all I enjoyed it but it would have been far better executed as a shorter film. **read: wanky Tyrone posted:I agree that this was terribly written, A 14 year old girl has not only heard of Goldfrapp but actually likes them? Did you miss the bit where she says "I loving hate Goldfrapp"?
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Aug 17, 2006 15:04
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The castration scene made me EXTREMELY uncomfortable, to the point where I had to look away several times. During that scene I kept saying to myself, "she needs to die RIGHT THE gently caress NOW". I think that the two leads did a very good job. The girl is a bit too smart for her age, but I was pulled in enough that I didn't really question it. I actually kind of liked the ending. It certainly wasn't a kickass ending, but it did give me a "huh, that's cool" feeling. I totally didn't see the whole the rope isn't long enough to hang him bit coming. 3.5
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Aug 19, 2006 10:23
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This movie really wasted its potential. It could have been complex and tried to addess the issues, but ultimately it sold itself short and turned the whole thing into one big, bad caricature. Whenever it almost did something interesting it felt the need to undercut itself just in case, e.g. revealing that Jeff was a murderer, as if it couldn't make him 'evil enough' (plastic enough) without this extra tidbit. For a while it seemed like it wanted to send mixed messages about good and bad, but ultimately it just didn't bother and turned the whole thing into a pretty ridiculous farce. Things like the absurdity of the girl's dialog could have been forgiven if it wasn't so pointless in the end. The few moments her character is interesting is when the shows signs of weakness or humanity, but those fleeting moments never go anywhere. There's nothing wrong with an emotionless machine if it's offset by something else you can latch onto, but the only other character is a pretty poor fit for that, and the film seems intent on making Jeff's character equally ridiculous as the film goes on. At the end you're left with two absurd, basically evil characters with no depth themselves, and no depth of overall message in the story either. Considering how difficult the film is to watch at times, what was the point if that's all we're left with? The whole movie could have complete turned around if they'd added some interesting twists about half way through, but it simply didn't, instead entering a downward spiral of totally unbelievable crap and increasingly ridiculous characterisation. And considering the subject matter, what sort of underlying message can we extract from it? As far as I can tell the best we can get is something like "if you're a pedo (and a murderer) some cruel ghost girl will come torture and kill you for kicks". Wow, deep. 1.5/5 for so much wasted potential. If you have the balls to make a movie about pedophilia, have the balls to make it a good movie too please.
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Aug 19, 2006 10:26
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As said before, the movie had way more potential. Also I expected something entirely different: From the trailer I thought it would be some sort of relationship drama; kid meets pedo, kids falls in love with pedo, you can't put all the blame on the pedo although you would love to. The kind of movie that involves lots of talking and little violence. The movie started exactly that way, but after twenty minutes it turend completely into some sort of psycho-torturing. The plot was quite okay for a movie like that but as I said, it was not even close to what I expected. The acting was great though. The pedo appeared to be a real creep, the girl first way to innocent (yet believable) and afterwards as psycho as it gets, just a bit to mature for a 14 year old. Pros: The first 20 minutes. Acting. I also liked the house. Cons: Did not come close to its potential and was not the least bit controversial. Too much torturing and too little talking for my taste. Missleading trailer. I rate it 3, it was above average, just not what I expected.
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Sep 14, 2006 15:33
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I'm really in the minority here when I say it was expertly well made thriller. The visual style was very fluid with a lot of nice cinematography to help indicate the mood. I thought giving the girl a bright red jacket against a bleak landscape as she got into the guy's car was a nice nod to Little Red Riding Hood. I was in suspense for the entire movie. The movie is almost entirely between these two characters and they both give excellent performances. I like how you were unsure who would turn out to be the worse of the two. I don't get the complaint about typical Hollywood soapbox preaching or a typical ending. The girl was absolutely loving correct in her points. And read a livejournal or a myspace page if you think girls that age can't be so smart and cunning. Despite being right for the most when it came to how to handle the situation her morals were sketchy, and I figured that would be the point everyone would be debating. And there were a couple times when she lost control and you could see the panic on her face. I don't want to give anything else away about the movie, except to say you need to see this. Suspenseful, great pacing, intriuging story, and excellent acting. 4/5 Also, THANK GOD some of you aren't in film because you have some terrible ideas.
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Sep 16, 2006 05:32
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"Interesting" is probably the best thing I can say about it. Not to say it was bad; some of the writing was clever, but she really didn't sound like a 14-year-old girl too well. Great acting, though, and I never expected a movie with (essentially) two characters to keep me as enthralled as this did. Although some of it dragged on (I mean, come on, the castration scene was practically half the loving movie considering how many times she had to keep re-numbing the area). Honestly, my biggest problem with it is so little actually happened. They had 104 minutes of film and about 30 minutes of plot. There was so much dialog and so much exposition and so little actual plot that at points I really didn't think I needed to be watching so much as just listening, simply because there was so little going on. Ultimately, I'm sort of bringing away from it the same "What was the point" feeling I got from Sympathy for Lady Vengeance. Not recommended. 2.5 / 5
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Nov 2, 2006 06:07
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Going with the "wasted potential" crowd here. I saw about 20 minutes of the movie while a friend as watching it: the castration scene. That scene was really well done, and even though I had no clue how it had come to this point, I was very interested in the movie. Too bad I watched the movie from the beginning the next day. The man who was writing those instant messages and the man who showed up at the coffee shop hardly seemed like the same person and personality. Nor was the man who took Haley back to his house related to the previous two. The portrayal of the "antagonist" was annoyingly inconsistent. During the castration scene, I sympathize with Jeff much more than with the girl. That could be the intention of the movie, but it comes off more as the writers forgetting what lines the character spoke in previous scenes. The movie also depends on the omniscient, omnipotent Haley who has the answer for everything. That plot device can work well, in movies like Old Boy, but not when that role is played by a 14 year old girl. The scene where Judy, the neighbor comes to the house is totally uneccesary, as the movie makes no attempt to follow through on what could have been a twist. As was said earlier in the thread, the tiniest bit of research into how a 14 year old actually acts would also have been a good use of time. It's worth watching on rental, I guess. The movie tackles a difficult and provocative subject, but only in a half-assed way. The opening scenes lead me to expect a shocking, deeply psychological movie, but ended up being mostly cop-outs and touching the subject too lightly. At least for me, I am left wondering what kind of movie it could have been. 2.0 / 5
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Nov 6, 2006 23:56
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If there was any reason you thought you should see this movie, you were wrong. It's executed horribly and the writing is absolutely awful. At the same time, you can tell the writers are really loving proud of themselves for coming up with some oh so clever wordplay or some even more clever rhetorical questions. This movie was worse than the horror movies Pantsfish used to review, because it's just as bad, but not nearly as hilarious. .5/5
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Nov 23, 2006 07:43
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The movie was way too slow, it speeded up and became interesting only during the castration scene, even though I kind of figured out that she didn't do it. I ended up hating the girl and rooting for the pedo. Also, no 14 year old can hoist a man up over a rafter by her self, it isn't possible 1/5
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Nov 24, 2006 10:23
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I agree with pretty much everything said so far. Two completely wasted plot twists that I was desperately hoping would lead somewhere but didn't. It would have been better if they had left you wondering. 2.5/5 for good directing and the "first half" as said earlier.
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Dec 3, 2006 10:54
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i saw this trailer once and thought it was a movie about a pedo torturing and stalking a girl like your average horror movie. what i got was the exact opposite to my surprise. still it was solid, but as everyone said, did not go anywhere
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Dec 26, 2007 11:27
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I hated, hated, hated this movie. The writing was loving atrocious. The people involved clearly had no idea how teenagers actually acted, and the girl was a ridiculous caricature about on par with the bad guy from the Hitcher, the difference being that the Hitcher didn't try to pass itself off as an important or relevant film. The whole thing reeked of pretension. The dialogue is, as someone said before, on par with the kind from bad Lifetime movies. The whole subplot with the neighbor seeing the girl on the roof had no point. The pedophile character was completely plastic and by the end any sympathy for him is completely lost. The acting was pretty bad, too, as the girl literally does play it as a 14 year old slasher maniac to the point of being downright corny. The other guy (who I thought was pretty good in Little Children) was just annoying. I honestly think I hated this movie more than just about any other I've ever seen. 0/5, a rating I literally never give out.
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Dec 30, 2007 20:52
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This was a really good movie as a parody of the idea of the victim turning on the pedophile, and witnessing the reactions of the people who didn't think of it as ironic was the most fun. The script is so intentionally cliched and horrendous that I can't take on the mindset of taking this movie as anything but a comedy.
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Dec 31, 2007 16:25
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I liked the fact the movie made me hate the little girl. I mean hell, at the end of the movie, I was rooting for the pedo. It's a very odd concept for a movie, but I think it was fairly well done. 3/5
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Jan 15, 2008 22:54
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Hard Candy isn't that bad if viewed as reminiscent of exploitation movies with regard to camp, shoddy plot and appeal to baser emotions. Also in this regard, whoever you come to feel worse for and why might just say quite a bit about you. If you're able to suspend any expectation of it treating a prolific social problem with all the seriousness due you'll have much more fun watching it. 3/5
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Nov 7, 2009 23:46
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