Hard Candy
Lions Gate Films | Release Date: April 14, 2006 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
58
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 30 Critic Reviews
Positive:
19
Mixed:
5
Negative:
6
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Film ThreatEric Campos
A tough sit, but it attracts more than repels you. It commands your attention. Once it lands its hooks in you, there's no tearing away. Read full review
90
Village VoiceRob Nelson
A film that forges identification with its victimized heroine like none I've seen in decades. (The Nova Scotia–born Page, a Molly Ringwald type who was only 15 when the movie was made, leaves little doubt as to whether a kid can play a grown-up's icky game and win.) Read full review
90
The Hollywood ReporterMichael Rechtshaffen
To pull this kind of thing off you need exceptional performances, and the two leads rise commandingly to the challenge. Wilson, best known for his work in the screen version of "The Phantom of the Opera" and HBO's "Angels in America," keeps his true colors effectively muted throughout the bulk of their face-off, but it is Page who astonishes. Read full review
88
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
These are two fascinating characters, and watching them thrust and parry proves to be as impossible to turn away from as observing a grotesque roadside accident. Read full review
88
USA TodayMike Clark
Hard Candy, a highly original psychological thriller/revenge fantasy, can be bitterly hard to take and uncomfortably intense, but it's well worth consuming. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Hard Candy is impressive and effective. As for what else it may be, each audience member will have to decide. Read full review
88
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
The film was reputedly inspired by Japanese teens who trolled chat rooms to find predators, made assignments, then ganged up to beat offending adults. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
Hard Candy is extreme - a battle of the sexes that glides from tricky to angry to shockingly ugly. Read full review
83
Portland OregonianM. E. Russell
Despite the hot-button pedophilic story hook (I'm surprised Jeff and Hayley didn't meet on MySpace.com), Hard Candy ultimately beats with the heart of a stagier, more complicated psychological revenge picture along the lines of Roman Polanski's "Death and the Maiden." Read full review
80
EmpireCaroline Westbrook
It's not always easy viewing, but Hard Candy is an intelligent, challenging film which deserves to be seen. Read full review
75
New York Daily NewsJami Bernard
A psychosexual thriller that treads a thin line between art and exploitation. The mere fact that it manages this queasy high-wire act is what sets debut director David Slade's slick mind game apart from the drooling pack. Read full review
75
New York PostKyle Smith
The prize for most sick-making movie I've ever seen goes to . . . that Driver's Ed film I saw when I was 16. The psychological thriller Hard Candy is right up there, though. I didn't know whether to applaud or barf. Read full review
75
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
Inspired by accounts of underage vigilante girls in Japan turning the tables on Internet predators, playwright Brian Nelson's schematic tale of the hunter captured by the game, a queasy blend of exploitation-movie nastiness and blunt moral lesson. Read full review
75
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWinda Benedetti
Hard Candy is not perfect, but it is a provocative piece of filmmaking with a dark and daring heart that makes it worth seeing. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
Hard Candy not only trips along a tightrope line between exploitation and art; in some ways, that line is its subject. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldPeter Debruge
The most extreme English-language studio release I've seen in years. Read full review
70
VarietyTodd McCarthy
A spectacular performance by teenage thesp Ellen Page elevates this disturbing slice of designer shocksploitation into a film that's impossible to dismiss on principle. Read full review
70
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
To give the film its due, the direction is expert, the writing is shrewd, the cinematography is stylish, and the performances are extraordinary... Hard Candy is also sadistic in its own right, relentlessly ugly, entirely heartless and eventually unendurable. It's torture.
63
Boston GlobeTy Burr
Hard Candy is the rare movie that may be worthiest for the arguments you'll have after it's over. Read full review
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