David Slade, "Hard Candy" (2005)
As if there were not enough violence floating around in the ether today... what with the most deadly mass killing in US history- I somehow felt the need to view a particularly nasty little flick called Hard Candy. I guess violence just begets violence. Why not dive in head first?
The film concerns a fashion photographer who lures a young girl to his house. Predictably, he contacts her first through an internet chat room, and then meets her (at her prompting) at a coffeehouse. This is, of course, an almost unavoidable device for a thriller in our contemporary era. Horror films commonly seek out and reflect the fears of society-at-large. And this is a threat you can't go a week without hearing about in the media. Online predators are stalking our children. Know what your kids are doing with that MySpace account. Don't take anything at face value. People wear any mask they want. These are no doubt important lessons for all of us to learn.
But kids are more savvy than we sometimes give them credit for. Or at least that is what director David Slade would have us believe. Just ask the wannabe child molester at the center of Slade's film. Today's teen is very resourceful, and in some ways his/her comfort with the virtual world far outstrips his/her elders. So listen pedophiles... be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it (and more... so much more).
Hard Candy is basically a slick updated version of the 70's cult classic, revenge-exploitation genre, which was best exemplified by I Spit on Your Grave (1978). The putative victim, who appears to represent the archetype of victimhood, turns the tables on her would-be attacker. The collective suffering of a whole class of previous victims is visited upon the classic villain, and a cathartic explosion of violence satisfies the film-viewer. This is supposed to be entertaining.
Granted it was obvious that Slade and Co. attempted to transcend this formula by portraying the pedophile as a complexly flawed human being... but those efforts resulted in abject failure (at least as far as I was concerned). From the very first scene onward, I had no sympathy or compassion for the man. Whether or not he deserved his fate didn't matter to me even a bit. I automatically judged him to be despicable. Tough shit. I felt nothing as I watched him undergo extreme torments that probably exceeded the justice of the situation. I simply found him impossible to identify with. And that was a death sentence for the film. There was no conflict for me. So all that remained was the gore and a series of cringe-inducing moments that I had no difficulty detaching from.
Additionally I found the role of the girl unlikely and simplistic. I can't blame it on the actor- there was no way her character could have been performed with any believability. Yet the role wasn't played for camp value either, so it was no fun at all. Where there is no true emotional depth, there is also no redemption. The entire scenario was executed much better in Matthew Bright's Freeway (1996). So skip the empty calories of Hard Candy, and seek out that Reese Witherspoon classic.
The film concerns a fashion photographer who lures a young girl to his house. Predictably, he contacts her first through an internet chat room, and then meets her (at her prompting) at a coffeehouse. This is, of course, an almost unavoidable device for a thriller in our contemporary era. Horror films commonly seek out and reflect the fears of society-at-large. And this is a threat you can't go a week without hearing about in the media. Online predators are stalking our children. Know what your kids are doing with that MySpace account. Don't take anything at face value. People wear any mask they want. These are no doubt important lessons for all of us to learn.
But kids are more savvy than we sometimes give them credit for. Or at least that is what director David Slade would have us believe. Just ask the wannabe child molester at the center of Slade's film. Today's teen is very resourceful, and in some ways his/her comfort with the virtual world far outstrips his/her elders. So listen pedophiles... be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it (and more... so much more).
Hard Candy is basically a slick updated version of the 70's cult classic, revenge-exploitation genre, which was best exemplified by I Spit on Your Grave (1978). The putative victim, who appears to represent the archetype of victimhood, turns the tables on her would-be attacker. The collective suffering of a whole class of previous victims is visited upon the classic villain, and a cathartic explosion of violence satisfies the film-viewer. This is supposed to be entertaining.
Granted it was obvious that Slade and Co. attempted to transcend this formula by portraying the pedophile as a complexly flawed human being... but those efforts resulted in abject failure (at least as far as I was concerned). From the very first scene onward, I had no sympathy or compassion for the man. Whether or not he deserved his fate didn't matter to me even a bit. I automatically judged him to be despicable. Tough shit. I felt nothing as I watched him undergo extreme torments that probably exceeded the justice of the situation. I simply found him impossible to identify with. And that was a death sentence for the film. There was no conflict for me. So all that remained was the gore and a series of cringe-inducing moments that I had no difficulty detaching from.
Additionally I found the role of the girl unlikely and simplistic. I can't blame it on the actor- there was no way her character could have been performed with any believability. Yet the role wasn't played for camp value either, so it was no fun at all. Where there is no true emotional depth, there is also no redemption. The entire scenario was executed much better in Matthew Bright's Freeway (1996). So skip the empty calories of Hard Candy, and seek out that Reese Witherspoon classic.
posted by Merge Divide at 10:18 PM
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