Reviewed by Frank on Thu December 21, 2006

Dan and Candy are young, free-thinking, and easy on the eyes. Dan is into Candy, and candy -- another name of heroin. We rapidly leap from the young couple at the fair to them getting high, which left me briefly dazed as to if the film had started, or I was watching another preview... a visual device that if not intentional, certainly left you with the sense of rapid change Candy was undergoing.

Candy is a nice girl from a nice family. She's drawn to Dan's care-free, drug-induced lifestyle. Candy is insistent that she experience everything Dan experiences, and as the both fell fast into love, he's ready to share. You watch as she opts for the injected heroin instead of the line, half rooting for her to just walk away; no such luck. It felt like such a waste for the pretty girl to end up with the loser guy, and while waiting for her to wake up and leave him, she just falls deeper into the vortex of addiction.

The spiraling vortex down is, in part, funded by their middle-aged pal Casper, who offers them money and drugs when the going gets tough. They get married on a whim, and soon start pawning their things. Candy gets a much better price selling grandma's ring when she has sex with the pawn broker. The look on Dan's face when she tells him, matter-of-factly, what she just did is a combination of disappointment and shame (which we feel with him), and relief that they now have money for another round of drugs.

Candy finds work as a prostitution, but Dan doesn't seem plagued with guilt over his sleeping until noon and doing nothing to support themselves and habits. They fight constantly, talk of cleaning up their act, and despite you wanting to see them follow through, are disappointed. (Candy's occasional visits with her parents amply this feeling, so if you don't already feel she's wasting her life, her mom is on screen to say it.)

Dan talks of finding work as a male prostitute, just so Candy isn't the only one selling herself, but he opts to steal a guy's wallet and $7,000 from his bank accounts instead. Not a bad day's work, but Candy announces she's pregnant (broken condom). Again, I sit and wait for her to take the hint that leaving him is the answer, but they decide to go ahead and tell her parents they're expecting, putting the best face forward. Dan begins to emerge as the good guy (finally!), but seemingly at the cost of Candy's moving from that axis.

Their spiral downward continues for some time, as with many addictions, not unlike Requiem for a Dream (2000). I kept waiting for the eventual rock-bottom state as to watch how they dig themselves out of that pit. It eventually happens, but not soon enough for my liking, and not without a high price. As a bystander, you hope for the best, but as with those watching it happen to someone you care about, it doesn't happen soon enough. I found myself identifying with Dan's desire to do good despite having bad habits, just as with Candy being so full of talent (she's an artist) and wasting it -- and wanting those two crazy kids to pull it together and do well for themselves. The conclusion is both painful, realistic, and while it may not be what I had hoped for, it didn't leave me at all disappointed.