Hard Candy (film)

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Hard Candy
Directed by	David Slade
Produced by	Rosanne Korenberg
Written by	Brian Nelson
Starring	Ellen Page Patrick Wilson Odessa Rae Sandra Oh
Music by	Molly Nyman Harry Escott
Cinematography	Jo Willems
Editing by	Art Jones
Distributed by	Lions Gate Entertainment
Release date(s)	April 14, 2006 (USA)
Running time	103 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$950,000[1]
Gross revenue	$7,022,209[2]

Hard Candy is a 2006 independent psychological thriller film focusing on a confrontation between a sexual predator and a 14-year-old girl he attempts to ensnare.

Hard Candy was directed by David Slade, written by Brian Nelson, and stars Patrick Wilson and Ellen Page, who rose to fame as the star of the 2007 academy award winning-film, Juno.^[3] It was the first feature film for Slade, who previously had worked mostly in music videos. The film inspired the music video for the OOMPH! song "Beim ersten Mal tut's immer weh"

[edit] Plot

The film opens with a flirtatious online conversation between a man and a girl, who agree to meet in person for the first time at the Nighthawks café. The two are revealed as 14-year old Hayley Stark (Ellen Page) and 32-year old photographer Jeff Kohlver^[4] (Patrick Wilson). After further flirtation, Hayley suggests they return to Jeff's house to listen to Jeff's recording of a Goldfrapp concert. Once there, Hayley makes them both screwdrivers after telling Jeff that she would not drink something that she did not mix herself. As they drink, Hayley suggests that Jeff take some photographs of her, similar to the ones of young girls displayed on the walls of his home. As Hayley dances to music on the couch, Jeff begins to feel disoriented and passes out.

Jeff wakes up tied to a wheeled computer chair. Hayley explains she drugged him and then accuses him of being a pedophile. As she searches his house, she discovers letters of correspondence between him and a woman named Janelle, who turns out to be Jeff's ex-girlfriend for whom he still has feelings, as well as photos in a hidden safe in his rock garden. Among them is a picture of Donna Mauer, a local girl who had been kidnapped and remains missing. Jeff denies involvement in Mauer's disappearance before kicking a distracted Hayley to the floor and wheeling himself to his bedroom to get a gun. As he returns, they struggle. Still tied to the chair, he begins to hit her against the wall, but Hayley is able to wrap his head in plastic wrap and asphyxiate him into unconsciousness.

Jeff wakes up tied to a table with a bag of ice on his genitals. Hayley informs Jeff of his impending castration, which she says will be a public service. After a long conversation she then begins composing an e-mail to Janelle. Despite Jeff's attempts to dissuade her through threats, negotiation and pleas for her sympathy, Hayley proceeds with the operation. Following its conclusion, she steps out of the room and Jeff breaks free from his bonds, only to discover that Hayley actually faked the castration. Scalpel in hand, he stalks Hayley to the bathroom, where he is blindsided from behind by Hayley, who shocks him into unconsciousness with an electroshock weapon.

Jeff awakens again, this time standing on a chair with a noose around his neck. Hayley reveals that she has written a fake suicide note on his behalf and offers Jeff a choice between killing himself before being revealed as a sexual predator, or living with the shame and legal consequences of his crimes. Their conversation is interrupted when a neighbor (Sandra Oh) knocks on the door. Hayley answers and convinces the neighbor that she is Jeff's niece, and that everything is fine. When Hayley returns, Jeff breaks free from the noose and pursues her to the roof, where she has created another noose, and holds him off with the gun. Hayley reveals that she has contacted Janelle, who is driving to the house. She offers him the choice of committing suicide, or she will pull off her own clothes and run into Janelle's arms crying. He finally confesses to Hayley that he was involved in Donna Mauer's death, but he claims that he only watched while his accomplice committed the murder. Jeff tells Hayley that, if she will spare his life, he will disclose the other man's name and help her find him. Hayley reveals that she already knows that "Aaron", the other man who Jeff claims to have killed Mauer, told her the same thing before killing himself. Janelle is outside the house now, knocking and calling for Jeff, while Hayley reminds Jeff that he still has the option of killing himself to avoid prosecution, as well as the shame of Janelle finding out about the things he has done. She promises that if he does this, that she will "take care of it all". Jeff, finally beaten, lets Hayley slide the noose around his neck with no complaint. He then walks off the roof, seconds before Hayley finishes her sentence: "...or not". She gathers her belongings and escapes through the woods at the rear of the house. There is a moment when she appears sorry for Jeff's death, but it is soon dismissed and she starts walking home.

[edit] Cast

• Patrick Wilson as Jeff Kohlver
• Ellen Page as Hayley Stark
• Sandra Oh as Judy Tokuda
• Odessa Rae (as Jennifer Holmes) as Janelle Rogers
• Gilbert John as Nighthawks clerk

[edit] Inspiration

The idea for Hard Candy came from a news story on 20/20 producer David W. Higgins saw about young Japanese girls who would lure older businessmen to a location with the promise of meaningful conversation and would assault and mug the men with a gang of other girls once the men arrived.^[1] This led him to wonder, "What if the person you expect to be the predator is not who you expect it to be? What if it's the other person?"^[1] He then hired writer Brian Nelson to flesh out the idea.^[1]

[edit] Production

Due to the controversial nature of the work, the budget was kept under a million dollars so that the production company would not ask to change anything.^[1] Oh agreed to do the film due to her desire to work with fellow Canadian actress Page, with whom she had appeared in Wilby Wonderful, but not in the same scenes.^[5]

Very little dubbing was used in the film, with only a couple of lines modified in post-production. Only nine minutes of music are present in the film, with ambient sounds, such as heavy breathing, making up most of the soundtrack. The film was shot in eighteen and a half days, largely in sequence, and mostly on a soundstage. The soundstage was based on Higgins' home, in case their budget did not allow them to use a soundstage. The creative team actively tried to eschew the Hollywood traditions of performance, avoiding trite beats when they could.

[edit] Thematic elements

Screenshots illustrating the digital coloring effects used throughout the film. The top screenshot shows how the scene was shot, while the bottom screenshot shows the modified coloring as present in the film.

Hayley wears a red hooded sweatshirt that is often seen as an allusion to "Little Red Riding Hood".^[1] However, this was a serendipitous wardrobe choice by the creative team that was not realized until later on.^[1] Foreign marketing for the film made great use of this allusion. For example, a tagline on the Japanese site for the movie reads "Red Hood traps the Wolf in his own game".^[6]

Jean-Clement Sorret was the digital colorist for the film, and is one of the few instances where a colorist received a spot in the opening credits.^[7] The film contains many coloring effects and "density shifts" of lighting to reflect the moods of the characters. For example, when Hayley gets angry the colors would be edited to be of lower frequency.^[1] One effect used which, as far as the director is aware of, had not been done in cinema before, was to brighten the lighting in filming and recorrect everything down in post-production.^[1] This allowed for facial details to be visible even while having a darkened atmosphere.^[1] The process required a custom-built digital intermediate to be made and proved to be extremely difficult, with corrections having to be made frame-by-frame in some instances.^[1]

Freeway, starring Reese Witherspoon and Kiefer Sutherland, is a similarly-plotted film using the Little Red Riding Hood motif; the actors, respectively, play a resourceful hitchhiker and the serial-killer motorist that crosses her path.

Early working titles of the script were Vendetta and Snip Snip.^[7] The producer wanted a title with a "sugar and spice combination [...] a mixture of harsh roughness, and innocence, and vulnerability", and settled on the title Hard Candy.^[7]

[edit] Release history

The film premiered at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival with a midnight screening. The Dolby Surround System failed before the screening and the audience was kept out until it was fixed.^[1]

Hard Candy opened in Los Angeles and New York City on April 14, 2006.^[1] During its opening weekend, the film grossed nearly $30,000 per theater, the highest per-screen average in the top 50.^[1]

The American DVD was released on September 19, 2006 with two commentary tracks, an hour's worth of making-of featurettes, six deleted and extended scenes, the script and director's notebook, and trailers for Hard Candy and other Lionsgate films.

[edit] Reception

The film received mostly positive reviews. On the review website Rotten Tomatoes, 68 percent of the critics gave it a positive review out of 127 reviews. Caroline Westbrook at Empire Magazine called it "A cracking little thriller..." and David Edwards at the Daily Mirror praised it as a "smart, challenging and timely look at the world of internet grooming". Matthew Turner at ViewLondon commented "a stylishly directed thriller that's worth seeing for its intense performances...". Todd McCarthy at Variety Magazine praised Page, saying "A spectacular performance by teenage thesp Ellen Page...". Lisa Rose at the Newark-Star Ledger reacted negatively, however, saying "Hard Candy takes itself way too seriously...". 

Critics applauded Page's performance; USA Today praised her for "remaining consistently convincing" to her role which is both "powerful and chilling."^[8] She won the Best Actress award from the Austin Film Critics Association,^[9] one of the few significant Best Actress awards of the award season not won by Helen Mirren for The Queen.

The film won three awards at the Sitges Film Festival, 2005: Slade won the Audience award for Best Feature Film and the Best Film award, and Brian Nelson, the writer, won the award for Best Screenplay.

The film made just enough to pay for its million dollar budget from its domestic release and proceeded to make nearly six million dollars more in world-wide revenue.^[2]

[edit] Notes and references

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Hard Candy (film)

• Hard Candy at Allmovie
• Hard Candy at Metacritic
• Hard Candy at Rotten Tomatoes
• Hard Candy at the Internet Movie Database
• Review at Ain't It Cool
• October 19, 2003 draft script
• BBC . Film Network - David Slade On Hard Candy