“Candy” may be technically tasty but it is still hard to swallow.
Even though the romantic drama features two achingly beautiful blondes in a few heady love scenes and their acting is a success in challenging roles, this Aussie-made, Aussie-set indie is yet another predictable and inevitably downbeat wallow into the destructiveness of drug addiction.
The “candy” in question is mainlined heroin. It also the name of the vulnerable young visual artist (“A Good Year’s” Abbie Cornish) who utterly enchants a charming loser with a poet’s soul named Dan. He’s played with empathy and nuanced angst by Heath Ledger, who proves here that his “Brokeback Mountain” tour de force was no fluke. Through his character’s point of view, we watch Dan and Candy slowly self-destruct.
You can foretell the story’s familiar trajectory nearly scene by scene, especially since title cards conveniently broadcast each stage: “Heaven” has its accompanying bedroom bonding and buzzed-out bliss. “Earth” brings home the reality of desperately needing the fix by any means necessary — highlighting such time-honored addiction-flick nuggets as prostitution, theft and the cold turkey montage. Then, of course, there’s “Hell.” The great Geoffrey Rush adds some flourish in a smaller role as the bohemian couple’s enabler-in-chief.
Director Neil Armfield adapted the script with Luke Davies, who wrote the source novel “Candy: A Novel of Love and Addiction.” The romantic drama probably seemed more original and fleshed out in book form but is reduced to plot points on film. Nevertheless, filmmaker Armfield provides an often moving though unsentimental showcase for the full-bodied characterizations created by Ledger and Cornish.
Cornish is best known these days as the gal who may or may not have enticed Ryan Phillippe away from his now-estranged wife, Reese Witherspoon. (So many blondes, so little time.) But at least “Candy” proves that she can act too. Not that such things matter in Tabloid Land.
‘Candy’
Stars: Heath Ledger, Abbie Cornish and Geoffrey Rush
Director: Neil Armfield
Rated: R for pervasive depiction of drug addiction, disturbing images, language, sexual content and nudity
