Candy

Australia

2006

116 Min

Color

1.85:1

English

Currently 3.5/5 Stars.
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PROD Margaret Fink, Emile Sherman

SCR Neil Armfield, Luke Davies

CAST Heath Ledger, Abbie Cornish, Geoffrey Rush, Noni Hazelhurst, Tom Budge

MUSIC Paul Charlier

Berlinale (Competition), Toronto (Contemporary World Cinema), London (Film on the Square), Vancouver (Cinema of Our Time), Stockholm (Competition)

Synopsis

Love on the edge. Candy is a talented young painter and Dan a promising occasional poet. Both are addicted to drugs. When they meet it’s love at first sight. In the beginning, it feels as if they have found paradise. But, as in all paradises, there has to be an original sin. In their case it’s heroin. At first they thought their happiness knew no bounds. But before long, when they’ve nothing left to sell, Candy turns to prostitution. Dan doesn’t stop her. Imperceptibly, they’ve overstepped the mark and put their paradise behind them. In an attempt to hold on to the real world, they decide to renew the bond of love and marry. But even on their wedding day their happiness is overshadowed by the influence of the drug. Candy’s parents are flabbergasted. The couple’s addiction is their constant companion. But it also brings them closer together. Or at least this is what their mentor and confidante, a professor named Casper, believes. He too is an addict. But then Candy decides she can’t bear her chaotic lifestyle any longer. Determined to kick the habit, she checks into a clinic. Her decision has a sobering effect on Dan. —Berlin Film Festival

Director

Neil Armfield

Neil Geoffrey Armfield AO (born 22 April 1955) is an Australian director of theatre, film and opera.

Born in Sydney, Armfield was the youngest of three boys. The son of a factory worker at the nearby Arnott’s Biscuits factory, he was brought up in the suburb of Concord adjacent to Exile Bay. He was educated at the (then) selective publicly funded Homebush Boys High School and the University of Sydney, graduating in 1977, and became Co-Artistic Director of the Nimrod Theatre Company in 1979. He joined South Australia’s Lighthouse Theatre before returning to Sydney in 1985, where he was involved in the purchase of Belvoir St Theatre and the formation of Company B, becoming its first Artistic Director in 1994.

In April 2008 he was selected as a participant in the Towards a creative Australia strand of the Australia 2020 Summit. Armfield announced in 2009 that the 2010 season would be his last as Belvoir Artistic Director, but he has subsequently directed under the new Artistic… read more