David Slade has directed one of the most disturbing films I have ever seen. It is called Hard Candy and there is no blood, gore or anyone killing anyone else. It just hits you deep in the stomach. Its a great movie to just sit and watch the audience react to. The film stars Patrick Wilson as a 32 year old man who looks for young girls on the internet and Ellen Page as Hayley Stark, a 14 year old girl who falls prey to his machinations or does she?
I saw a preview for this yesterday, and I'm definately going to see it when it comes out in Canadia. I guess I'll have to watch it before I make up my mind about what the director was saying...but I just don't know...from what I understand so far, this just seems to be another branch on the tree of the Lolita syndrome that plagues Hollywood and the rest of the world these days.
This is a really good (and quite disturbing) film, although probably not quite as disturbing as the reasonably-similar-themed 'London to Brighton'.
Its a lot more entertaining though.
The director's comments about responsibility in the film are also quite fitting in hindsight.
How come it takes so long for these films to come out in the US?
Nokturn said:
This is a really good (and quite disturbing) film, although probably not quite as disturbing as the reasonably-similar-themed 'London to Brighton'.
Its a lot more entertaining though.
The director's comments about responsibility in the film are also quite fitting in hindsight.
How come it takes so long for these films to come out in the US?
I have been called a very scary girl for loving both 'Hard Candy' and Takashi Miike's 'Audition'. It just might be true, but an interesting point is when DRE said --what was it-- that Ellen Page comes across as something akin to exceptionally capable --and please forgive me for not having the wording the way I should-- and then at other times she is like a scared little mouse. I seriously believe this to be the entire point of responsibility in the film. A 14 year-old no matter what at the end of the day is still a child. Children are in the process of growing up. There will be times when these very young people will be incredibly adult like and times when they are flexing a prowess that is beyond their years. But to interfere with their process of becoming by intrusion, manipulation and otherwise predatory adult relations and behaviors is wrong in the absolute.
You can tell yourself it's okay to have sex with a 13 year-old girl though you are a 50 year-old man because she isn't a virgin, but nothing diminishes the fact that you are having sex on a child. That at some point she looks like the 13 year-old she is, doesn't mean you were lured in and are now being punished for being attracted. It just means, she is 13.
It's that kind of richness I thought Ellen Page brought to the role and very much why I loved the movie. I personally feel I was more adult when I was 15 years old than I am right this very moment. I was secure and confident, and like Slade said, everything was so very Black & White. To this day I am infinitely grateful to every teacher, friend of the family, "uncle", et al that said to me "If you were 10 years older..." but never put a hand on me. What's kind of weird to me is that I should consider myself lucky and need to be grateful at all.
courtneyriot
STAFF
Los Angeles, CA
APR 10, 2006 06:00 AM