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Nothing sweet about story |
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Written by Elizabeth Weitzman, McClatchy-Tribune
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Friday, 01 December 2006 |
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 "Candy"
2 out of 4
Heath Ledger, Abbie Cornish, Geoffrey Rush
R / 1 hr. 48 mins.
At some point while watching “Candy,” you are very likely to think, “Wow, Heath Ledger may well be the best actor of his generation.” And then you will look at his co-star and think, “Hey, isn’t that the woman who stole Reese Witherspoon’s husband?”
Because although there are some very striking moments in Neil Armfield’s debut, there are simply not enough to keep us absorbed the way a movie should.
When the film begins, Dan (Ledger) and Candy (Abbie Cornish) have already been together long enough to share their ultimate passion: heroin. Their story is told in three parts, titled “Heaven,” “Earth,” and “Hell,” and since “Heaven” starts with Candy’s near-OD, you can imagine where we go from there.
Cornish works hard, Ledger is outstanding, and together they make the most beautiful addicts in history. But their world is so insular that we begin to feel suffocated immediately. The best scenes come when the film opens up to other characters, like Dan’s enabling mentor (Geoffrey Rush), or Candy’s horrified parents (Noni Hazlehurst, Tony Martin).
But those moments are too few, and most of the time we watch this ill-fated couple fool around, do drugs, fight, do drugs, cry, do drugs.
Armfield may have wanted to skirt the obvious choice by skipping the beginning of this romance, when Dan and Candy met and fell in love. But the problem with junkies is that they are very hard to like. They are by necessity desperate and self-absorbed, cunning and needy. And if we don’t already have something invested in them before they hit this low point, how much can we possibly care when they fall even further? | Only registered users can write comments.
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