Hard Candy (film)

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Hard Candy
Film poster featuring Hayley, resembling Little Red Riding Hood, as bait in an oversized beartrap.
Directed by	David Slade
Produced by	Paul G. Allen 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	Under $1,000,000[1]
Gross revenue	$7,022,209[2]
Official website
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Hard Candy is a 2005 independent psychological thriller film focusing on a confrontation between a sexual predator and a 14-year-old girl he attempts to ensnare.

The film is directed by David Slade, written by Brian Nelson, and stars Patrick Wilson and Ellen Page. It was the first feature film for Slade, who previously had worked mostly with music videos.

[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 a cafe. The two are revealed as 14-year old Hayley Stark (Ellen Page) and 32-year old photographer Jeff Kohlver^[3] (Patrick Wilson). After further flirtation, Hayley suggests they return to Jeff's house, to listen to a Goldfrapp mp3 Jeff recorded. Once there, Hayley makes them both screwdrivers, after telling Jeff she doesn't drink unless she can be sure of the contents. 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 Jeff returns with his camera and begins taking pictures, he feels 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 of a sexual nature 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. He begins to bang 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 kind of public service. After a long conversation she then begins composing an e-mail to his ex-girlfriend. Despite Jeff's attempts to dissuade her through threats, bargaining, negotiation, and pleas for her sympathy, Hayley apparently proceeds with the operation. Following its conclusion, she steps out of the room, and Jeff breaks free from his bonds, only to discover that the operation was faked. Scalpel in hand, he stalks Hayley to the bathroom, where he is blindsided from behind by Hayley, who shocks him into unconsciousness with a stun gun.

Hayley begins to type a fake suicide note. Jeff awakens again, this time on a chair with a noose around his neck. Hayley reveals that she has written a fake suicide note on his behalf and has called Janelle (Jennifer Holmes), telling her to come to the house. She 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 manages to hold him off using the gun.

As Janelle arrives at the house, he finally confesses to Hayley that he was involved in Donna Mauer's death, but claims that he only watched while another man, who he says was his partner in the crime, actually committed the murder, and offers to tell her his name for sparing himself. Hayley reveals that she already knows his name, and that, "Aaron told me you did it, before he killed himself." Janelle is outside the house now, knocking, and Hayley reminds Jeff that he still has the option of killing himself to avoid prosecution, as well as the shame of Janelle finding out the things he has done. She promises him that if he does this, she will destroy all evidence of his crimes and that nobody but the two of them will ever know. Reluctantly, Jeff doesn't resist when the noose is slid around his neck and walks off the roof, seconds before Hayley says, "Or not". She gathers her belongings and escapes through the woods, walking down a road.

[edit] Cast

• Patrick Wilson ... Jeff Kohlver
• Ellen Page ... Hayley Stark
• Sandra Oh ... Judy Tokuda
• Odessa Rae (as Jennifer Holmes^[4]) ... Janelle Rogers
• Gilbert John ... 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 sex 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] Sandra 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 ADR 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 the home of producer David W. Higgins, in case their budget didn't allow them to use a soundstage they could shoot in his house instead. The creative team actively tried to eschew the Hollywood traditions of performance, avoiding cliché 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 get cold.^[1] One effect used which, as far as the director is aware of, hadn't 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 still be visible 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]

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 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.

Critics applauded Page's performance; USA Today praised her for "remain[ing] 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. Both the film and Ellen Page's performance were also very highly praised by British film critic Mark Kermode.^{[citation needed]}

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] According to Rotten Tomatoes, 67% out of 125 critcs gave the film a positive review.

[edit] Notes and references

[edit] External links

• Hard Candy Official Website
• Hard Candy at Metacritic
• Hard Candy at the Internet Movie Database
• Review at Ain't It Cool (contains plot detail)
• Yahoo
• October 19, 2003 draft script
• BBC . Film Network - David Slade On Hard Candy