Hard Candy (2005)
Dir: David Slade
Rated: R
So sometimes we get these sleeper films that become cult and thus the focus of independent accolades. We also get real stories that don't fall into the category of "summer blockbuster" or "fall/winter/we're-hedging-for-an-Academy-Award drama." Hard Candy is one of those films that makes you think. Makes you wonder if there's a girl like Hayley Stark out there avenging those who can no longer speak for themselves. The abused, the murdered, the abducted...
To start, we have Hayley herself:
Ellen Page as Hayley. Playing a bright honor student who is only 14.
Hayley Stark has been Internet chatting with this guy named Jeff Kholver (Patrick Wilson). He's 32. He photographs models. At the beginning of the movie, you immediately feel uncomfortable for Hayley—automatically thinking that she's going to be taken advantage of in the worst way by this guy, and wanting her to be rescued by anyone. They chat online and then meet in person at a coffee shop where he buys her a T-shirt, has her model it for him, and then offers to email her a bootleg copy of a Goldfrapp concert. She "convinces" him to let her listen to it at his house with three reasons: One, she's been seen in public with him. Two, It's Goldfrapp. Three, four out of five doctors agree that she is insane. She gets in his car and they take a long and winding road up to his home.
He brings her a drink, but Hayley suggests she make her drink herself. She pours two screwdrivers and Jeff has no qualms in letting this 14 year-old drink vodka. He's none the wiser. By the time she suggests he take her portrait, Jeff has already given off enough skeevy vibes that when he passes out mid-photo session we feel grateful. As he falls to the floor the expression on Hayley's face reveals that she isn't as naïve as we think... Jeff wakes up tied to a computer chair and Hayley has dropped the "innocent" act.
"You remember what I said about never drinking anything you didn't mix yourself? That's good advice for everyone."
He screams for help, but she sprays chloraseptic in his mouth and tells him "next time, it'll be the bleach" and that she knows no one is around to help him. She explains that she has had multiple chat accounts to find him—that as soon as he found out she was older than 14, he'd stop chatting. He feebly denies it and claims the others "weren't interesting," but Hayley knows better. She knows he copied phrases from Amazon.com about certain obscure bands that she pretended to like ("I fucking hate Goldfrapp."). She knows something we, the audience, don't know. Something that passed us as a blip in the coffee shop in the poster for the missing Donna Mauer. When confronted with his behavior by Hayley—tied to a chair and unable to escape her relentless questioning—Jeff resorts to the blame game.
Jeff: You were coming on to me!Hayley: Oh, come on. That's what they always say, Jeff.Jeff: Who?Hayley: Who? The pedophiles! 'Oh, she was so sexy. She was asking for it.' 'She was only technically a girl, she acted like a woman.' It's just so easy to blame a kid, isn't it! Just because a girl knows how to imitate a woman, does NOT mean she's ready to do what a woman does.I mean, you're the grown up here. If a kid is experimenting and says something flirtatious, you ignore it, you don't encourage it! If a kid says 'Hey, let's make screwdrivers!' You take the alcohol away, and you don't race them to the next drink!
It's something you want blared from a loudspeaker for everyone to understand.
Hayley is methodical. While he was out, she searched Jeff's apartment for any porn—anything at all. But there's nothing. Not even a copy of Playboy. Which, to her (and me), is really "off." According to Hayley, single men don't hang up photos they've taken of barely clothed young girls throughout their home. She needs proof of Jeff's depravity and searches his computer after reading some private letters sent from Janelle, Jeff's previous obsession. His downloads indicate a pattern, but none of the files are on the computer—leading Hayley to believe he has it hidden somewhere. After an unsuccessful attempt to get her to stop, Jeff begins to finally realize he is not dealing with any normal girl (as Hayley says: "There's that word again; 'girl.'"). She grills him and, without a word, discovers he does, indeed, have things hidden away.
"Nothing's yours when you invite a teenager into your home."
As Hayley searches his place again and finds a gun under his bed. She tosses it on the mattress and continues her search. Jeff vainly tries to escape the tight knots she's used to tie him to the chair. But he stops when he hears rattling. There is a safe tucked into the coffee table and covered carefully in a bed of river rocks. She scoots him back out into the living room and asks him for the password. Underestimating her intelligence yet again, Jeff refuses to tell her. But she can read his face. After trying only five combinations, she finds out it's the date that Jeff first photographed (or had sex with) Janelle (the girl in the framed photo he keeps in his bedroom) and only has to guess on the year.
"This is what they make those Federal laws for, Jeff. This is officially sick."
She finds, amongst the photos and CDs labeled "Stuff" a photograph of Donna Mauer outside the same coffee house she met Jeff at. After asking him what was so special about that girl—why she got to "keep her clothes on," Hayley whispers that she recognizes the girl. Jeff promptly kicks her in the ribs and knocks her against a table, having freed his feet, and tries to get to the gun on the bed. Hayley recovers from the blow. By the time Jeff has the gun in hand and has wheeled back to the living room, Hayley seems to have vanished.
She ambushes him from behind, gets slammed repeatedly into the wall, narrowly escapes being shot, and successfully knocks Jeff out with the help of an entire roll of Saran Wrap. Hayley doesn't kill him. Time passes and Jeff wakes up practically hog-tied to that table he kicked Hayley into. And she's since removed his pants and dropped a Ziploc bag full of ice on his crotch. He threatens, feebly, that he'll call the cops and say he's never touched her. Hayley brings out the damning photograph of Donna. He admits to meeting Donna for coffee and claims he took the photo to make her "happy."
Jeff is still trying to maintain that "I did nothing wrong" front.
We then see that, instead of the layers of tank tops, Hayley has the top half of some medical scrubs on. She threatens to send an email to Janelle (whom Jeff is obviously still very attached to) and there is a lot of "Jeff tries to talk Hayley out of this" stuff—then begging once he realizes she's perfectly willing and capable of making good on her threat of castrating him.
I won't spoil the rest of the movie (seeing as I've spoiled so much of it already), but it goes without saying that it is a tough subject to sit through. There is the implication of image, but we see nothing. By the end of it all I realized there was no "score" to be exact. The emphasis is all on the dialogue and these two characters. We find out just how messed up Jeff really is through Hayley's consistent pushing. It takes a while—long enough that we've been introduced to Jeff's truer nature.
Jeff: Who the hell are you?Hayley: I am every little girl you ever watched, touched, hurt, screwed, killed.
It's another pertinent quote. Hayley is an enigma. But she really is every little girl out there who is seen as a potential victim or target. She embodies those kids we want to save from the pedophiles and despicable people out there. She also embodies that person we wish that we could have around to look out for those traumatized and abused children. But to my knowledge, there is no Hayley Stark.
"Honors student, remember? Nothing I can't do when I put my mind to it."
In the end she escapes easily and walks down the road—red hoodie flipped up and looking like an avenging angel for all the abused and damaged girls. We don't know who she is and if she's even finished with her mission to find the abductors of Donna Mauer. We don't even know if Donna is the only one Hayley has "investigated." She claims to not have never done some of the things she does to Jeff. She searches his home thoroughly and precisely. She handles herself with a professional air and, for a fourteen year old, is angry in a way that normal teenagers aren't. Hayley claims her "four out of five doctors agree that I am actually insane" quote is true. To be honest, she does seem like a functioning sociopath.
I wish there was a real Hayley Stark around to work as a vigilante for the "watched, touched, hurt, screwed, and killed." So, despite the delicate subject matter I honestly recommend Hard Candy as a serious film to watch. It's dramatic and heart-pounding—carefully constructed to engage us and suck us into the story to leave us with that "what brilliance did I just watch?" feeling.
And like that, poof. She's gone.
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