Click Here For Our Interview with Heath Ledger

Candy

Review By: Benjamin Lee
BenjaminLee@TheCinemaSource.com

In order to make a convincing movie about drugs, filmmakers face a number of obstacles. Firstly, they have to skillfully create the illusion that the actors themselves are actually under the spell of a particular drug. Secondly we have to be made to feel as if we can empathize with them and feel that we can imagine what it must be like to feel such dramatic emotions. Thirdly, like the sports movie, the drugs movie tends to follow such a familiar formula (drugs are great, drugs aren’t so great, drugs are terrible) that we also need to be surprised.

Candy’s drug of choice is heroin and from that you can guess we’re not gonna be in for an easy ride. Our protagonist is Dan (Heath Ledger) a poet who indulges in a bohemian lifestyle, one which attracts middle-class painter Candy (Abbie Cornish). She soon starts to indulge in one of Dan’s major passions: heroin. The film is split into three definite chapters: heaven, earth and hell as we see Dan and Candy’s heady love descend into a nightmare of addiction as the drug takes its toll on their relationship and their lives.

Co-financed by the Australian Film Commission, Candy is a drugs film untouched by studio interference and mainstream concerns. It contains some of the rawest drama you’re likely to see this year. We’re never really surprised by the overall conclusion that heroin is a destructive force but that doesn’t make the destruction it causes any less painful. Dan and Candy are never presented as anyone that we couldn’t imagine knowing. The only problem we have is trying to imagine why they would want to get involved with heroin in the first place.

It’s a problem that the film inevitable faces and one which cannot really be solved. There are attempts to give us an insight into Candy’s childhood. We never meet Dan’s family but on frequent occasions we meet Candy’s increasingly concerned parents. Candy is never comfortable around them, especially when it comes to her stifling mother. What’s refreshing is that the film never explicitly tells us about Candy’s youth but from the small subtleties in their interactions we can tell all is not well.

Once you overcome the difficulty in accepting their choices, their journey into hell is grim but gripping. The couple face problems finding money to pay for their habit so Candy begins to prostitute herself while Dan develops one ingenious criminal scheme. The two also seek help from Dan’s father figure Casper, played by Geoffrey Rush, who gives the two money and drugs, only fuelling their problems. There are some devastating scenes in the movie,