Hard Candy is Hostel for the self-righteous filmgoer. A heinous, wish fulfillment fantasy about what director David Slade and screenwriter Brian Nelson would like to do to pedophiles, the film amounts to nothing more than a justification for getting satisfaction out of torture porn. But instead of sympathizing with the people on the receiving end, hoping for their escape… Hard Candy asks us instead, “Why watch a film like this unless you can root for the torturer?” Enter Ellen Page as our fourteen-year-old heroine Hayley, in her now-patented snarky fashion (this is really nothing more than her Juno performance crossed with a sociopath). She suspects Jeff (Patrick Wilson), a thirty-something photographer of being a predator of little girls her age… so in between some smarmy quips, she drugs him, ties him up and begins her search for the damning evidence by ransacking his home. It’s an interesting role-reversal decision to see the preyed upon get the better of the predator, the only problem being Hayley is entirely insane. And we as the viewer are expected to cheer her on while she gets all sorts of sickening pleasure out of her vile acts, even without Hayley having a shred of evidence to show us (don’t worry, she’ll obviously find some later to justify the blood thirst). Thankfully, Nelson has also provided Page with enough trite, longwinded speeches to spit out all the while about how harmful pedophilia is… apparently just so we don’t lose sight of who the real bad guy is here. It’s a hideous spectacle of the filmmakers’ ids, a terrible moral lesson on taking an eye for an eye and purports the appalling message that victims of sexual predators should take revenge into their own hands. All this is not to say that a pedophile does not deserve what he gets, but who appointed Page judge, jury and executioner? It’s not her responsibility, nor entitlement to do so. It’s simply a means to an end for Slade and Nelson, using Page as their surrogate to show us what they themselves would like to do…
10 comments:
Let me ask you Mulligan. Have you ever liked any film that revolves around torture in any aspect. You didn't like Funny Games, you rip on Saw and Hostel, and you probably don't care for Texas Chainsaw either? Haven't seen Funny Games yet, but I will stand up for the Saw franchise (aside from the inept IV), I will defend aspects of both Hostel films, and dammit I will certainly defend this film.
Let's take away plot and character and everything else and look at it from a film making aspect. Slade does a great job with suspense and lighting here. It felt very Hitchcockian at times in terms of use of venetian blinds, the art deco and the ambiguous nature of whom is the bad guy/good guy. If you don't agree with the film that is one thing, but I don't think you can deny the solid pacing, structure (aside from two many fake climaxes), and technical prowess behind the camera.
Also it's unfair to rip on Ellen Page whom you know for Juno now, when this film came out years before Juno. If anything Juno is this performance minus the sociopath. Not the other way around. And to be honest, I don't see the similarities all that much. I certainly saw it in Smart People, but not here. She gives a really creepy performance here that had me and many of my friends afraid for the victim.
That is another thing I really dug was the fact that it made me feel sorry for the pedophile. No doubt he did something truly terrible, but having me question the treatment he was given makes for a very relevant conversation these days with waterboarding and its use. Having me feel sympathy for the victim when clearly he is a bad man is clearly unique to this genre where it is always good guys that are getting hurt.
Also Patrick Wilson gives a phenomenal performance here that had me believing everything that was going on was actually taking place. I really thought he was having his balls cut off. I was sweating bullets and in tears, not cuz of the implied actions, but because of his face and the expressions of horror he gives.
I'm confused. do you honestly think their message was an eye for an eye. Do you really think Slade ans co. want us to kill those that kill. I definitely didn't have that reaction. I think he wanted to present a difficult choice for us to make ourselves. He leaves it in our hands as to whether what she did was right or wrong. He doesn't make that answer for us. When I left, I certainly didn't not admire that girl in any sense of the word. I never cheered her on at all. Some would argue differently. I think creating such a dialogue is one many should have in terms of the death penalty and whether it is moral or not.
Not all films are supposed to make you feel good afterwords. This is one of those films. One I will never watch again yet own. What's important though is it got you think about morals and justice, and in this day and age with Norbit and Disaster Movie, you can do a lot worse. No offense Mulligan, I respect your opinion a lot, but when it comes to horror films, as you have said yourself that it is your least favorite genre, I just don't expect you to ever truly like one let alone love one. Much like the terrible Richard Roeper, you seem to already have a predetermined reaction that torture porn cannot have any redeeming value. I disagree.
On a completely different topic, I watched Shane and wonder if you will have an opportunity to see it sooner rather than later cuz I would like to discuss it asap.
*spoilers galore, watch out*
I figured I’d start some discussion with this one… and I knew I’d be in the minority on it as well, because everyone I know who’s seen it recommended it quite a bit.
But to answer your first question Ty, for one, I gave a slight pass to the original Saw. It’s the sequels, when the producers realized they can churn one out every year using the same storyline and gimmick time and time again as long as people die in new and horrifying ways that the films started to repulse me.
I don’t feel like your presumptions about my taste are all that accurate either. While I certainly agree that horror films are not my favorite genre (and have said as much), I don’t intend to dislike any film I’m watching and in just the past year I’ve watched, and liked, 28 Weeks Later, The Descent, Death Proof, The Dead Zone and The Thing amongst others.
I honestly don’t remember enough about The Texas Chainsaw Massacre to feel like I have any business discussing it, but one of my favorite horror films of recent years is the similarly immoral The Devil’s Rejects. And if that isn’t evidence enough that I’m willing to give any film the benefit of the doubt, I don’t know what is.
Plus, as you well know since you’re also a fan of “24” and “Lost,” I have no particular aversion to torture scenes on a whole either. When the torture scenes become the source of “entertainment” for the film is where I draw the line.
Now, if you want to “take away the plot and character and everything else” and look at it strictly from the filmmaking side of things I still have plenty of issues with the film. First and foremost is the lack of character development that David Slade presents us with. We get a simple internet chat conversation to open the film, a meet-up in a coffee shop and then they’re headed back to the house for what Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle called, “an exploitation film, with very little happening but a guy getting tortured for about 75 minutes of screen time.”
What, in the end, do we really learn about either character? Patrick Wilson reveals himself to be the pedophile we all know he is from the beginning and from Ellen Page we find out this isn’t the first person she’s tortured to death. That’s it.
I’m not arguing there are solid technical aspects to the film, but that’s hardly enough for me to recommend the film. The pacing is fine for a film of this sort and the cinematography as well, but the structure is pretty obvious. You tease an escape or two along the way and in the end, Wilson’s character ends up with a noose around his neck.
There was one thing that stood out to me as exceptional in this film (but having disliked the film so much, I didn’t feel it necessary to comment on it during my review). Patrick Wilson’s performance. Definitely agree with everything you said about him. He sells this character entirely through the first 3/4ths of the film. He blows Ellen Page right off the screen. I didn’t appreciate when the film turned him into a knife-wielding maniac at the end, but I guess that was inevitable. He definitely adds shadings to a character that could have been very one-note.
Now, Ellen Page. I admit I was just using a shortcut in the review by referencing her Juno role, but c’mon, how can you not see the similarities. Check out some of these snarky, hipster lines she has to deliver throughout this film…
1. Jeff: Fuck Off
Hayley: Your conversational skills are really deteriorating as the day goes on.
2. Jeff: It’ll ruin my career… it’ll ruin my life!
Hayley: Well, didn’t Roman Polanski just win an Oscar?
3. Hayley: I’m reading this book about Jean Seberg
(looks at Jeff, who shakes his head)
Hayley: She’s this actress who slept with all the wrong people and ended up killing herself.
4. Hayley: Well, 4 out of 5 doctors agree that I am actually insane.
5. Hayley: I’ll take care of everything.
(Jeff jumps. Hayley runs after the rope and looks down at the now hanging Jeff.)
Hayley: Or not.
6. Hayley: This really is one of the simplest operations you could imagine. Makes me wonder why they teach Girl Scouts things like camping and selling cookies when they could teach them something really useful like this.
(pause)
Then again, I wouldn’t know how they would design a merit badge for this type of activity.
And this is just a small representation of her dialogue from what I found online.
Getting back to that “eye for an eye” comment. I’m confused. Did you really think this film meant anything else? Look at the situation it presents us with. 14-year-old girl ties up, tortures and ultimately is complicit in the murder of a pedophile (whether you like it or not, her tying the noose around his neck at gunpoint and telling him to jump is being complicit). Not only does she not have any evidence upon entering the house, but after she uncovers some and has Wilson’s character completely tied up, she still refuses to call the police. Instead, she decides to take it into her own hands to continue with her methods, which ends in his death, presumably because she’s enjoying herself too much.
Then she walks away scot-free.
Not only that, but we find out this is the second time she’s done this, having already killed Wilson’s partner in the crime. So any hope that there is a modicum of regret or hesitation on her part goes right out the window.
If, like you said, Slade and co. wanted us to decide on our own whether what she did was right or wrong then he wouldn’t have presented such a clear “get out” point for her. She has the ability to ruin his life, but she doesn’t want that. She wants death. She wants an eye for an eye.
And the death penalty in itself is an entirely different topic. Whether you agree with it or not, it is one predicated on government and laws. Hayley’s judgment is vigilante anarchism.
Or, let’s turn to Filmspotting’s occasional guest, Michael Phillips, when he said, “Only two males working in perfectly mediocre pulp harmony would dream up an avenging angel like this one.”
Listen, I know I’m in the minority on this one. I knew it as soon as I finished it that this would be another Trainspotting nightmare disagreement, but it’s not like I had preconceived notions to hate this film (or any horror film). I felt that this film gives you no one to root for, not much of a story, nothing to care about and got a strange perverse pleasure in its torture.
Oh, and I still take offense at the comparison to Richard Roeper. One of the worst, high profile critics I’ve ever seen, his commentary on films always seem to be of the most general and lazy variety…
…besides, he liked this film.
As for Shane, I’ll bump that up to be the next on the “Screening Room Sessions” and watch both that and All About Eve this week, since I know you’ve finished that one as well. Maybe we’ll get back on some common ground after I – finally – throw up my thoughts on Wall-E.
Damn you make it hard for a guy to argue with you don't you.
Listen, I agree that presumptive remark that you dislike all horror films was a low blow, and I know you go into any film hoping to like it. Obviously you thought you would like this one since you heard so many good things from others.
Your dialogue comparisons to Juno are fantastic. I saw this before Juno, so that didn't stand out at the time of course, but I do clearly see the comparison. I'm kinda done cheering her on. She needs to do something different now. Even Jon Heder has stretched himself more that her it seems.
I stand by my thoughts that the film has better intentions than you think, but you make a good case. I mean if you like Devils Rejects (a film I liked quite a bit too) you can't be completely devoid of sick thrills.
But in all honesty Mulligan, have you even seen Hostel? You rip on it enough, but I don't believe you would ever have seen it. Am I right, or am I making a another terrible assumption?
And I would take back the Roeper rip, but you reminded me that you didn't like Trainspotting, so I'm afraid it must stay for the time being until you redeem yourself. (Smiley Face Emoticon/Dumb Text Message Acronym explaining that this was a joking comment)
Yep, sorry Ty, that's another swing and a miss.
I saw Hostel back when it first came out on DVD. The reasoning behind it? I liked Eli Roth's Cabin Fever and wanted to see what he did next. The guy has some definite skill with a camera... I just think he decided to stop using it to tell stories.
If you're assuming I haven't seen Saw III or Saw IV or Hostel: Part II then you'd be correct in your assumptions. But I honestly don't watch films that I feel I will undoubtedly hate just so I can bash on them. And I don't bash on films that I haven't seen, unless I'm simply criticizing how bad they look.
OR it's something like Norbit and Wild Hogs that just become the butt of jokes because they look laughably awful.
That said, I've heard there's more to Hostel: Part II then there was in the original, some sort of political message of sorts... but at this point I'm waiting for Roth to do something besides fetishing gore before I see another one of his films. I found Hostel to be another film that was unable to invest me in any of its characters because it wanted so desperately to get to the violence and had no characters to really present me with.
Say what you will, but horror films work so much better when you actually care about the characters and what happens to them.
Otherwise, the only thing you end up rooting for... is the movie to be over.
Well I'd hate to get in the middle of this heated debate but I'd just like to add a few of my own observations on this film.
I'll start by saying that I liked it...or rather liked the fact that it disturbed me and made me think about what I'd just seen. This was the first film I'd seen Ellen Page and I was really impressed with how well she pulled off "Psychopath" especially for her age. I'd only seen Patrick Wilson in Phantom up til that point and I too was blown away by his performance.
I'm always a fan of films that take place in one (or nearly one) location and can hold my attention for the whole film (12 Angry Men comes to mind as the best example but also Interview, which Brian and I disagreed on a bit as well). Not once during this movie did I think, "gee, I'm bored, I wish they'd change the scenery for once"...in fact, I was so wrapped up in the moral questions and the cat and mouse struggle taking place that it never came close to crossing my mind.
I saw this a while ago so I'm kind of shooting from the hip here on my reactions but from what I remember I left the movie feeling like I wasn't quite sure if Hayley was just effing with Jeff the whole time or if she truly had killed before and was really a sociopath. What made me question it is that (if i remember correctly) she never really hurt him. All the torture was psychological even up to the end...she didn't push him off the roof, she gave him the choice and for a second there I thought she was really trying to catch the rope. I might have to revisit the movie after reading the reactions to it here in order to confirm my initial thoughts but it was the uncertainty I felt about it all at the end that hooked me.
It makes me sad that I've seen both Norbit and Wild Hogs. And I sat through Wild Hogs again with my grandparents whom loved it (Never thought I could have imagined the heinous things I wanted to do to my family)
Its odd that I didn't like Cabin Fever though. Good concept and execution, but too many really absurd moments that killed the suspense including that damn karate biting kid. WTF
And I agree that character development would certainly benefit any horror film. I just didn't think Hard candy was devoid of like. I would say that that is my biggest problem with Hitchcock's The Birds. Didn't care for the characters. Wanted them to be pecked to death.
Whaddya know? Hard Candy was on one of my movie channels last night. How fortunate for me.
I rewatched and I'm going to have to stand by my previous comments and also side with Chachi on the Juno-esqe performance part of the debate. The only stark similarity I saw was that her dialogue was far more mature than her years. But she played Hayley so differently from Juno that you really can't even compare the two other than the fact that both characters had an outsiders take on the modern teenage stereotype. Also in defense of Page's performance, I noted all those quotes you listed and none of them came off with the biting sarcasm of the Juno character. In fact, some of them were so underplayed that I almost missed them. I could argue further but I think the point has been made clearly enough already.
Once again, loved the cinematography.
I'm going to retract my statement about grabbing the rope at the end...she clearly doesn't go for the rope, but merely wants to get the line "or not" in before he snaps his neck.
I don't think the goal of this movie is to get people to think vigilantism is okay or not okay. I think the goal is to make people question what is right and wrong and what justice really means. And though you said she never gives him the opportunity to let her ruin his life and live what about "the offer still stands Jeff" at the end on the roof. Yes, she enabled his suicide and ultimately wanted him to jump, but had he wanted to live and not jumped what would have happened? Janenlle was already at the house and Mrs. Tanaka was suspecting something was up as well. Now, if the movie had ended with Hayley shooting Jeff cause he wouldn't jump I'd be more inclined to side with what you're saying Brian. But ultimately (and it sounds like in both cases) she let the pedophile choose and he chose suicide thus making himself judge, jury and executioner.
If nothing else the goal was to get people talking about it and that's exactly what it's done here for us. In my book, that's a success.
Okay, I hear what you’re selling.
I’m just not buying.
Jeff is dead because he met Hayley. Simple as that.
She set up the scenario, she tied the noose around his neck, she had a gun on him and she tricked him into killing himself by explaining she’d clean up his mess. Whether or not he deserved someone to do that is beside the point, the endpoint is… she suckers him into killing himself. At the very least this is assisted suicide and I’d be amazed if this didn’t constitute a homicide.
As for the torture, sure, a large majority of it is mental… but does that really make it any better? Ultimately the film ends the same way. And psychological torture can be just as bad as physical torture, take for instance, post-traumatic stress and the Chinese water torture methods. I don’t remember every torture method Hayley implied – and have no interest in going back and revisiting this film to see them all again – but I do know, there were knives, ropes, guns, tasers and she sprayed, what, window cleaner? in his mouth and ‘pretended’ to cut his balls off.
Even if you get past the fact that she didn’t technically shoot Jeff, she still managed to get a sick perverse pleasure out of torturing some guy she had never met before that day and had absolutely no interest in turning him into the police. Hayley, simply as a character, disturbed me to no end. You’ve got to be pretty damn sadistic to be as nonchalant about torturing someone, whoever it may be, as she was.
Now, as for her ‘underplayed’ performance… I couldn’t disagree more. I understand that judging someone’s acting is subjective, but I was never once impressed with Ellen Page’s performance here and the one scene where Jeff apparently gets her to cry only for her to laugh at him is so obvious and transparent, I started to wonder how that could possibly have been her best take.
And she delivers all her lines, once she gets to the house, with a pompous, self-righteous “I’m-holier-than-thou” regard, not just the lines I listed above. All of them. At least Juno gave her some quieter moments, some interplay with J.K. Simmons, Jennifer Garner and Michael Cera’s characters that kept her from being so sarcastic. Those moments enabled you to see the real person in there, and showed her quick-mouthed brat attitude as largely just a façade. Here, that’s all they’re offering.
Again, I expected to get beat up on here… largely because both you and Ty had recommended this film to me in the past, so I knew what I was getting myself into by posting a pan of this film. And you’re right, there is some merit to a film being able to cause so much debate, but I’ve gotten so much more enjoyment out of the arguments over this film than I did watching it. I just wish I was spending so much time analyzing a film that I actually got even a modicum of enjoyment out of. Oh well.
Pengin hasn't even given his opinion yet either Mulligan. I know he loves the film too, but he may be sitting on the sidelines laughing his ass off at us. Kinda wish I did debate team in school now. We should do a post on the merits of A Christmas Story. We'll both get our asses chewed off for that.
And you're still wrong about Harvey too. But at least you have Matty Ballgame in your corner on that one.
Wow...that was a long read. I just got back from the gym, and am in no mental state to join the argument at this time. However, I will say that I do remember digging the film, but I can't honestly remember much of it. The chopping the balls off scene kinda dominates the rest of it to be honest. Everyone here has made good points, so, until I get a chance to rewatch it, I will sit on the sidelines and let you monkeys fight for my amusement.
Oh, and Christmas Story is super over-rated. And Harvey rules.
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