Candy (2006) Movie Review, Cast & Crew, Film Summary

Yet Another Drug Film has Heath Ledger and Abby Cornish working hard for their paltry Oz-industry wages, ably back up by Geoffrey Rush as a queer chemistry professor who makes a home-made heroin brewski. The direction by theatre veteran Neil Armfield is replete with arty visual cliches, including one of my pet hates, languorous shots of people swimming. A decent strain of harsh comedy runs through the proceedings. What it lacks is a reason to exist. If you’ve seen Days of Wine and Roses and Panic in Needle Park, you’ve seen this film done better. The scag-addicted pair in this drama, he a poet, she a painter, command none of the tragic weight that would be the film’s sole claim to distinction, that their mutual artistic ambitions being fucked up would grant, because what little we see of their abilities and their lovey-doveyness has no context – her paintings are crap, his poems sound dumb, and when the film starts they’re already dopers. That’s all our film industry needs. Hey look! We can go gritty too! Ten years after Trainspotting! Aren’t we cool?