Director: David Slade, US, 18, 103min
Stars: Ellen Page, Patrick Wilson, Sandra Oh
On general release
The doe-eyed student Hayley Stark (Page) is 14 years old. The high-class fashion photographer and possible paedophile Jeff Kohlver (Wilson) is 32. They flirt online, meet up for coffee, flirt some more, and before you know it Jeff is tied semi-naked and spread-eagled to his kitchen table with Hayley standing above him clutching a medical text book in one hand and a scalpel in the other, muttering the immortal line, “Don’t worry, castration is the easiest operation around!” Such is the premise of Hard Candy, a provocative Death and the Maiden revenge fantasy for the internet age. The first two unforgettable acts, an intimidating barrage of close-ups and searing rapid-fire exchanges between the eerily implacable Page and an increasingly desperate Wilson, set the bar impossibly high. The final act, unfortunately, is overlong and a melodramatic muddle. Shame.
KEVIN MAHER