Kill the Baby-Killer

Society hates perverts. But what is a pervert? There are many answers to that question. The main answer to that question is a pedophile. They are at the bottom of the barrel. Everyone hates them. Even the prisoners in prison hate pedophiles. So what does one do with such a monster? Hayley Stark traps the accused pedophile, Jeff Kohlver, tortures him, and convinces him to commit suicide. One might cheer at the idea, but the way that Hayley executed the whole plan makes one feels sorry for Jeff instead of cheering for Hayley.

Hard Candy starts out innocent and cute with an IM chat. A boy and girl agree to meet in person for the first time. Jeff, played by Patrick Wilson, is a twenty-two year old photographer and Hayley, played by Ellen Page, is only fourteen years old. They seem to be falling for each other in real life right away. Hayley is first portrayed as a sweet and innocent young girl. The couple goes back to his house to be more private. They talk and listen to music. Hayley makes them both screwdrivers and asks Jeff to take some pictures of her like the other little girls on his walls. The idea starts to go as planned, but then Jeff starts to feel sick and pass out. He wakes up tied down to a rolling chair. As it turns out, Hayley is not the sweet innocent she pretended to be. The whole thing was a trap to try and torment Jeff and maybe kill him in the end. The whole movie goes through the misery and malice that Hayley puts Jeff through. She acts like she is castrating him, beats him, calls up his ex-girlfriend, Janelle, trying to murder him, and finally convinces Jeff to commit suicide by hanging himself. This all seems brutal and cruel to the outsider. One even has to feel sorry for both Jeff throughout the whole movie. But she is only doing it out of revenge for Donna Mauer, another one of Jeff’s victims, and all of the other girls he had raped and killed in the past. She is a vigilante in a sense for these girls.

Ellen Page did a great job of commanding the acting role for Hayley. She was just that convincing. It made me shutter nervously at all of the torture she put Jeff through. I maybe tough like Hayley was in the film, but I wouldn’t go to the lengths that she did, even if they deserved it or not. I am not that cruel. Overall, Hard Candy is a good movie.