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The Denver International Film Festival continues through this weekend with the much-anticipated screening of Heath Ledger’s new flick, Candy, on Friday, November 17, at 9:30 p.m., and Saturday, November 18, at 9:45 p.m. Ledger and Abbie Cornish play unbelievably gorgeous heroin junkies in this don’t-try-it-at-home melodrama adapted from Australian author Luke Davies’s aptly billed “novel of love and addiction.” Essentially the film is Requiem for a Dream, with a lot less of that overrated indie’s shooting-gallery pizzazz, although director Neil Armfield does put his smacked-out couple on one of those centrifugally forceful amusement-park rides in the very first scene, in order to suggest that their young lives are, you know, spinning out of control. Cornish, Kidman-esque in her elusive look-but-don’t-touch allure, may have the title role here, but Ledger, long-haired and so soft-looking you’d think he was being shot slightly out of focus, is the movie’s real eye candy. Any drug movie’s effectiveness can be measured by the strength of its detox, and Candy doesn’t sweeten the cold turkey. Too bad it’s a downward spiral from there, in more ways than one.
The film is playing at the Starz FilmCenter in the Tivoli. For tickets, information and a complete schedule of films, visit www.denverfilm.org.
