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Hard to swallow

Literally torturous, Hard Candy ties you to your seat, slaps you around and sprays a mist of disinfectant into your eyes, nose and mouth while you watch all 103 persecuting minutes of it. Initially intriguing, the film, directed by David Slade, tosses you a series of close-up shots of the two main characters, the pedophile and the innocent teenager, and leaves you wondering where the arguably creepy smirks, unsure smiles and flirtatious dialogue are headed. After the initial twist, however, a long, frustrating sequence of rant and torment scenes has you begging for an end, even an unsatisfying one. Not surprisingly, this is exactly what you eventually receive for your viewing troubles.

Hayley is a fourteen-year-old girl who reads a lot, a fact evident in her premature intelligence. Jeff is a 32-year-old photographer who shoots mostly underage future fashion models. The two meet on the internet and, after three weeks of coquettish chatting, decide to meet for coffee at the local mall. Eventually, the two end up back at Jeff's apartment and have a few drinks, the result of which places Jeff in a precarious situation at the quite-truthfully-insane hands of a sadistic, pubescent lunatic. From this point, the film regresses into Hayley lecturing, insulting and psychoanalyzing Jeff while she playfully hints toward his impending castration and death. For his part, Jeff manages to escape a few times only to be recaptured by the cunning Hayley, who wastes no time suffocating him with plastic wrap or sending him into convulsions with a tazer. Both cases produce the paradoxical urge to both yawn and wretch - a contradictory feeling that permeates the whole of the narrative.

Quite simply, the story is, more or less and baring a few minor revelations, about as complex as a child's four-piece puzzle. The dialogue, consisting mostly of Hayley's cute and sinister sarcasm and Jeff's guttural pleas, is annoying, but not completely asinine. The problem with the narrative, for the most part, is its refusal to prove Jeff's guilt while all the while providing more and more evidence to convict Hayley of unjustified torture. Although this may have been the intent of the writer, Brian Nelson - to keep the audience ambivalent toward Jeff's mistreatment - some physical verification of his horrendous deeds would have helped me stomach his suffering and Hayley's righteous locution. As it stands, the only evidence that Jeff deserved every second of his anguish is hearsay and pictures never directly shown to the audience. With this cinematic reserve, the film feels unjustified and meaningless.

To their credit, Hayley and Jeff are played with incredible zeal by Ellen Page and Patrick Wilson, respectively. Their acting never feels forced and the emotions they are able to convey with their expressions and tone of voice are almost palpable. It is unfortunate, then, that they have such a ridiculous script to work from, one that hops from discreet come-ons to soapbox-like homilies without a proper transition and without plausible reason. Still, even with the energetic acting, the film drags on longer than it should, trying to utilize its lewd torture scenes to retain the interest of an audience that, most likely, has already gone on to thinking about an after-movie snack or the bills piled up on his or her table at home.

If films like Hostel or Saw have somehow created warm places in your heart, Hard Candy might be of some interest. Also, if masochism is your thing, you might enjoy the near-torturous experience of having to watch this movie from beginning to end. For everybody else, spend your eight bucks on something that has a point, and if that's not important, at least a movie that's fun rather than frustrating. Hard Candy is exactly as it implies: something that's difficult to chew and swallow.

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