Those upset by the ex-pedophile makes good story of “The Woodsman” may find consolation in “Hard Candy”, which is basically just a film about a pedophile that gets what he had coming to him all this time. While “The Woodsman” is basically about redemption “Hard Candy” is very much a one-sided revenge flick in the vein of “I Spit on Your Grave”, and “Audition”. Incidentally enough, both films with opposite depictions of pedophilia bear the same red riding hood metaphors. “Hard Candy” begins with the glow of a computer screen with two people chatting online and engaging in heavy flirting and finally, after a run around, decides to meet up. The two people in question are a fourteen year old named Hayley, and Jeff, a man in his thirties.
“Maybe there isn’t a design”, the cleaner examines to her audience, but then maybe there is. Maybe there’s a god and this is all a large plan, but maybe there isn’t and this all just random, then what of our existence and how we can leaves traces of ourselves long after we’ve died? “It doesn’t end when we’ve died”, the cleaner declares. Shirley Henderson gives a fascinating performance as “the cleaner” an entity who hovers around everyone in their household and cleans and wipes up after them and could very well be a ghost because she’s just a watcher.
