Sex-play thriller toys with expectation

Hard Candy begins with an instant-message conversation unfolding on a computer screen. This digital dialogue, we're led to believe, is between an older, perv-y guy and a teasing Lolita eager to take the relationship out of the e-realm and into the real world.

And so, this icky, incoherent thriller about a sex stalker and a teen - and about revenge and humiliation - is off and running.

Scripted by playwright Brian Nelson and directed by music video/commercials veteran David Slade, the film looks sharp and stylish, just like Jeff Kohlver (Patrick Wilson) - a cool fashion photographer in his 30s with a house in the Hollywood hills. He meets the whip-smart waif Hayley (Ellen Page) in a coffee shop, a face-to-face assignation that was the result of all that hot and heavy innuendo on the Net.

What happens next, as Jeff invites the frisky underage Hayley back to his home for a drink, is supposed to be a surprise - an extremely unpleasant one.

Hard Candy plays with audience expectations in cheap, arty ways, and Page, who has to carry the weight of the plot's big twist on her boyish little shoulders, isn't up to the task. (Probably no young actress is - the character just doesn't bear scrutiny.)

A punky pixie in a red-hooded sweatshirt (remindful of another heroine who faced down a big bad wolf), Hayley's got a secret agenda, and the tough-gal chops to carry it off.

But the young actress isn't believable for a second, which makes Wilson's performance in the exploitive Hard Candy equally hard to swallow.

Contact movie critic Steven Rea at 215-854-5629 or srea@phillynews.com.

Read his recent work at http://go.philly.com/stevenrea.

Hard Candy * 1/2 (Out of four stars)

Written by Brian Nelson, directed by David Slade. With Patrick Wilson and Ellen Page.

Running time: 1 hour, 39 mins.

Parent's guide: R (sex, violence, profanity, adult themes)

Playing at: Ritz at the Bourse and Ritz Sixteen/NJ