Candy
(2005/THINKFilm)
Picture:
C+ Sound: B- Extras: C+ Film: C+
For
years, Heath Ledger was making usually very bad films until Brokeback Mountain gave him
credibility, but drug abuse drama Candy
(2005) offers what is for him an ambitious performance as Dan, who loves the
title character (Abbie Cornish of Ridley Scott’s A Good Year) and possibly to death as they go from recreational
drug use to outright junkies.
Director
Neil Armfield co-wrote the screenplay with Luke Davies and though this is a
somewhat sincere attempt to show the rise and fall of such a relationship, it
is everything we have seen before and is not even as memorable and therefore
not as palpable as better such films. It
is certainly less effective than Darren Aranofsky’s Requiem For A Dream and though it does not glorify the experience,
it sometimes goes too lightly on it. The
leads have some chemistry, but the sheer inexperience of Armfield & Davies
fails them. Too bad, because this could
have been interesting if it had just been bolder about the heroine itself. Geoffrey Rush also stars.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image is softer than expected for a new
production, though colors are not intentionally gutted or anything. Garry Philips camerawork is not effective,
with the usual tired shaky camerawork that is artistically referred to as “handheld’
but means nothing but bad shooting. The
Dolby Digital 5.1 mix has some good surrounds, including with interesting
choices of music sometimes, though is still dialogue-based. Extras include trailers for this and other
THINKFilm product, feature length audio commentary by Armfield & Davies and
two other pieces that are not necessarily featurettes: Writing On The Wall: Candy’s Poem In Motion and Candy: The Path To Wild Abandon.
- Nicholas Sheffo
