Movie Monday: Darkness Before The Joker

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I used to make jokes about wanting to do heroin. It amused me because I didn’t know any junkies and I liked to see how far I could go before my friends called my bullshit. You’d think watching Requiem for a Dream as a teenager would be an effective deterrent, or maybe after seeing Trainspotting last year in my Edinburgh apartment (where the film is set in the late 1980s). Not until seeing Candy, a 2006 independent film from Australia, did I put the brakes on this jest.

Candy is not as sleek or inventive as its heroin-movie predecessors. What it lacks in luster it makes up for in a pair of gripping performances. Neil Armfield’s directing debut—based on the novel by Luke Davies, who co-wrote the screenplay with Armfield—is a poetic no frills look at how smack can derail young love. Heath Ledger plays Daniel, a selfish dispassionate slime ball who is in love with Candy, played by up-and-comer Abbie Cornish. The chemistry between Cornish and Ledger is electrifying, sparks which eventually burn as they nosedive along the spiral of addiction.

Unfortunately for the filmmakers, the main attraction in Candy is the chance to see Heath Ledger in one of his final roles. This was right before playing one the Bob Dylan iterations in Todd Haynes’ I’m Not There, and two years before his celebrated interpretation of The Joker. It can be seen as a sort of a villainous warm-up for Heath. It’s painful to watch Daniel take advantage of Candy’s admiration, pulling her into his pathetic life of petty crime and indifference. Cornish often steals the scene, giving a harrowing performance that does much more than compliment Ledger. Geoffrey Rush is excellent as their functioning junky benefactor, an organic chemistry professor who makes his own pure grade heroin.

In addition to the heart-wrenching glimpse into the junky life, Candy is also a brutal reflection on misogyny. Daniel’s credo is stated early in the film, “I wasn’t trying to ruin Candy’s life, just make my own better.” He is at moments quite charming but self-absorption and detachment defines this loathsome character. I remember watching Ray (starring Jaime Foxx) and thinking “well, the guy’s a musical genius, he’s blind and he’s haunted by his past, he gets a pass for using heroin.” I can’t say the same about apathetic dickhead Daniel. Ledger is difficult to watch as he reminds us just how much drug dependence can damage personal relationships. While in the throes of addiction it is easy to forget they were ever in love. You can imagine this ugly road does not come to a happy ending.

If you have read President Obama’s Dreams From My Father then you know how close he came to trying heroin. Teenage Barack was working at a restaurant and went into one of those big refrigerated rooms with a coworker. The coworker shot up and something about the sight convinced Obama not to do it. I say let Candy be your refrigerated room. Heroin use is just not funny when it ruins the one great drug that’s out there, romantic love. Cheesy, I know. But so is the bleacher seat song and dance sequence (‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You’) in 10 Things I Hate About You. Here’s to Heath Andrew.