DVDs, 9/27.

One of the most controversial films of 2006, or at least potentially controversial, has been David Slade's Hard Candy, from a script by former teacher Brian Nelson. Essentially a two-person play, Hard Candy recounts what happens after a 14-year old girl (Ellen Page) in a red hoodie goes home with a slick 32-year old photographer (Patrick Wilson) whom she first encounters on the Internet. The film's guileful trailer suggests that Hard Candy is a slasher or horror film but it turns out to be a psychological drama in which the teen is on an intricate revenge trip.

Surprisingly, Hard Candy did not provoke the sort of protests one usually associates with films that tread the ambiguous terrain of adolescent sexuality. Now out on DVD, Hard Candy receives a brief review at Entertainment Weekly in which Jeff Labrecque lauds the film's "visual ferocity" and the way it "craftily tests the audience's sympathies for an Internet pedophile and a seemingly helpless 14-year-old," adding that a "superb making-of explains how a then-bald Ellen Page beat out 300 other girls for her role by interpreting Hayley as Joan of Arc."

Brett Cullum at DVD Verdict kicks off with the admonition that "Strangers should never talk to little girls," before praising Hard Candy as the "slickest sick thriller to come along this year." Noting that the film "got a limited run and disappeared quickly," Cullum points out that Slade craftily "lets you wonder who the predator and the prey is every step of the way, and it ends exactly how it should. It's a film about vigilantes, sexual justice, and hard questions.... You'll question, you'll debate, and you'll find yourself writhing all the way."

At DVD Talk, Francis Rizzo III begins confessionally by rightfully praising the film's merchandising: "When I saw the trailer for Hard Candy, I knew I had to see this film. It's not that I'm a big fan of movies about pedophiles, but the look of the preview (and the poster) was so striking and the concept so intriguing, that I couldn't wait to check it out. Unfortunately, it didn't get a wide release and never made it to a theater near me. Now though, I've experienced Hard Candy, and I'm glad I did." He goes on to add that the "best aspect of this intimate film (there [are] only four speaking roles, including Sandra Oh's inquisitive neighbor), is the lack of a hero." The extras also summon up praise: "Considering the controversial topic at the heart of the film, it's ripe for some bonus material, and Lionsgate didn't let anyone down, giving the DVD a good spread of extras," especially that hour-long making of, which constitutes "a very engaging look at how the film was made," while an additional nine-minute short, "Controversial Confection: The Soul of Hard Candy," "goes deeper into the movie's content and everything that goes into making a movie about such a topic."

Finally, there is Mike Russell at the DVD Journal. Russell is relatively silent on the supplements but praises the films opening sequences, especially the first scene, depicting what we soon learn is the first meeting between Jeff and Haley. "Their coffee-shop conversation is one of the more skin-crawly interactions to be seen in a movie in a good long while, and everything - from Jeff's too-smooth manner to Hayley's woman-child naiveté to the brightly lit close-ups of faces and forks cutting cakes - is designed to unsettle." But at the 25-minute mark, "the movie changes into something tricky and merciless. The remainder of Hard Candy deals in wince-inducing surgery, revealed secrets, power struggles, surprise twists, and no-win ultimatums. As in the original permutations of another, older story featuring a girl in a red hood, the lines between predator and prey blur when both parties turn out to be cunning." But, unlike the other reviewers, Russell is not uncritical. "Unfortunately, the story does lose quite a bit of its queasy power as the revelations start piling up, and there's so much monologuing by Hayley and Jeff that you wonder if Nelson's script wasn't first written for the stage," but nevertheless concludes that Hard Candy "still works as a smarter-than-usual cat-and-mouse deathmatch."

Posted by dwhudson at September 27, 2006 12:08 AM