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Clip description
Candy (Abbie Cornish) and Dan (Heath Ledger) have rented a shack in the country after Candy’s miscarriage. Her parents come for Sunday lunch but the chicken is past its use-by date, and still frozen solid by lunchtime. Candy gets angry when her mother (Noni Hazlehurst) marches into the kitchen. Mrs Wyatt explodes in anger – first at Candy, then at Dan. Candy responds with her own anger, aimed straight at her mother.
Curator’s notes
This is the first time that Mrs Wyatt has mentioned the word ‘drugs’, and the first time we hear her say what we know she’s been thinking – that Dan corrupted her innocent daughter. It’s also the first time that Candy responds with any honesty to her mother’s concern. This is as close as the script comes to a suggestion that Candy’s heroin use may be connected to an unhappy upbringing – although we are never sure what to believe. Candy and Dan lie so much, and so convincingly, to her parents that Candy’s outburst could be just another manipulation. The film script expands the role of the parents, in comparison to the book, which gives the film a wider emotional canvas. The performances of Tony Martin and Noni Hazlehurst (playing a mother to a heroin addict again, as in Little Fish) are very moving, and they balance the narcissism of the young couple, whose story might otherwise be too one-dimensional.
