Hard Candy

Plot:

Young girl meets older man through the internet.

Preview:

This film is something that I had been wanting to watch for a while. The premise and plot of it sounded very enticing and I also appreciate Ellen Page's general acting style. A general theme on this blog, besides the films, is that of the human mind and expectations, and how it can dramatically change your experience of said films. I had, whether I liked it or not, painted a picture in my head about how this film would be, to a certain degree. It did not correspond with how I actually perceived the film and sometimes that's a good thing. It wasn't, this time.

Ellen Page plays the 14 year old girl Hayley who is exploring the fascinating internet and its possibilities. She chats with older men online and finds Jeff ( Patrick Wilson ) interesting for a particular reason. Hayley is the driving force behind them meeting up and she flirts shamelessly with him until they end up at his apartment. Jeff works as a photographer and shows her some of his work and Hayley is fast on picking that up as a subject that "defines" him. She is also very interested in getting on camera for him. In the meantime they have gotten themselves drinks and this is where the film takes an interesting twist.

This film deals with some large themes and without spoiling anything its very easy to take the perpetrator's side in all of it, which is quite uncommon, for obvious reasons. It's also about the constant battle of the sexes and power. So in conclusion I would say some parts of this film are good and some parts are really bad. You are therefore left with a sort of schizophrenic impression.

I usually like films that take an unexpected turn and are in themselves non-predictable but overall I didn't really like where this was going. It became the offspring of a tv-movie and a crim-show on television. Very poor acting, especially from Patrick Wilson, and I felt like it didn't really made an impression on me. It dabbles in the psychological thriller department somewhat, which has an element of "interesting" in it, but I expected more from this.

I 

Trailer:

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