Hard Candy / Adrian Lyne's Lolita

In Hard Candy, a teenager allows herself to be lured in by a man twice her age in order to get justice for crimes that she believes he has committed against young girls. As a film geek, I'm thrilled when I find a film like this that I can discuss with my date the whole way home. Of course, I should warn you that this isn't exactly a perfect date movie, as there are some pretty nasty torture scenes and a surgical procedure guaranteed to makes guys cross their legs in sympathy.

The film has only 5 actors credited with lines, and most of the movie focuses on a cat-and-mouse game played by precocious 14-year old Hayley (Ellen Page) and her alleged pedophile acquaintance, Jeff (Patrick Wilson). Both actors do a phenomenal job, especially considering that neither of them has had a starring role in a feature film until now. Ellen Page's performance is a real stretch, as she has to play against her fragile and innocent look and become convincingly cold-blooded and frightening. In fact, it's a clever bit of casting that Jeff is has such all-American good looks- no one wants to believe that he could be a child abuser, so it adds to the audience's confusion about his possible innocence.

There are a lot of clever references in other areas as well, such as Hayley's signature red hoodie. I imagine that this was a conscious nod to the Little Red Riding Hood fable, except now the tables have turned and the wolf is on the defensive. We could take Hard Candy as a modern fable, warning of the dangers of the Internet. There are sexual predators flourishing in cyberspace, and young people are becoming wise beyond their years as a defence mechanism.

Another very interesting debate that is raised is the search for appropriate punishment for sex offenders. While Hayley's methods are admittedly extreme, she doesn't go too far beyond what the criminal justice system has already proposed. Re-integration into society, chemical and surgical castration, and life imprisonment have all been tried as possible solutions for pedophiles. Which of these methods have been most successful is hard to say. Hayley's character had an excellent argument in response to Jeff's attempts at justifying his behaviour. She notes that just because a girl can act like a woman, it doesn't mean that she is a woman. It's a crucial distinction.

It's that very distinction that reminded me of one of my favourite film adaptations, Lolita. (No, not the poor romantic comedy by Stanley Kubrick, but the 1997 version by Adrian Lyne.) That film is equally controversial and sometimes hard to watch, but the performances by Jeremy Irons and Dominique Swain are excellent. It's beautifully shot, and the technique of telling the story from the point of view of the abuser is just as shocking now as it was when Nabokov's novel was published in 1955. It's guaranteed to provoke discussion, as all of the best films do.
Selina frequents movie theatres and video stores so often that she is often misateken for an employee. She actually works at the Epcor Centre and also organizes a monthly performance event. For details, go to http://spaces.msn.com/members/redmilerevenge/. Please send questions, comments and offers of fame and fortune to sechebib@gmail.com.