"Candace" is an American live action short film from 2018, so not a really new movie and also not too old either. Moving closer to its fifth anniversary now and perhaps it has happened already when you read this review of mine. It runs for under ten minutes even if we include the closing credits. The director here is Em Weinstein and he wrote the script also together with lead actress Stella Baker here. For Weinstein, not the luckiest last name these days, it was his first filmmaking credit, his first of so far three short films with the other two being much more recent. From what I saw here, I have no interest to check out any of his other works. I am not somebody who says that there is always the need for a film to have a lot happening to turn it into an exciting watch. On the contrary, I really dig quietly convincing films with a great deal of subtlety, but with this film(maker) you can feel that he was so eager to deliver in terms of both, the memorable action and the depth, but he came very short in both departments. The action felt for the sake of it and exaggerated, especially at the very end. While the quiet moments when the two girls are just talking felt uninspired and bland and never remotely deep. This also includes the key moment when we find out one of the girls has lesbian tendencies. Very clumsy depiction. I would not even blame the actress too hard there as I guess probably nobody could have made this moment work the way it was written. This is especially bad in my opinion then because it is films like this that are obstacles to the cause of equality and tolerance if they entirely rely on the subject being enough for people to watch and like this movie. It should be proper elaboration on the subject, but you're not gonna find that here. And let's not even talk about random inclusions of for example smoking marijuana here to show us how liberal and open-minded these people are. Again, perfectly fine if it is part of the story like with a film elaborating on drug addiction, but not if it's for the sake of being hip.
The reason why this movie is relatively high (okay not too high) on the imdb starmeter is the Black actress in here, the one you see on the right on the poster here on imdb. Moses Ingram has appeared on The Queen's Gambit, one of the most successful (mini)series of the last year and her inclusion there gave this short film some more attention too. But she is nothing special at all in this film here. I must also say that her character seemed a bit racist to me on one occasion with how she talks about another character. The shocking thing is not what she said, but that we are still supposed to see her as likable despite what she said. Impossible for somebody with an objective mind. By the way, the character she was talking about is the one you find in the title here. Candace never appears in this film. Instead we get some random rambling about dolphins to creatre some pseudo depth and the pretty abysmal pseudo dramatic ending. So yeah, early on I thought I could be a bit more generous at least and give this one two more stars, but the quality is simply not there. It's not a weak film, it's a bad one. I see no potential here whatsoever, which has mostly to do with the script. Definitely more than with the acting, but, as I said, one of the two actresses is credited as a writer here as well, so no apologies for her. The White one that is whose biggest career credit is probably The Mentalist. Stella Baker. Okay, that's it. Shameful this really bad outcome even attracted some awards recognition on at least one occasion. Glad to see imdb voters see through this charade and gave it a low rating mostly, even if a four on the left side of the comma is still at least two numbers too high. Highly not recommended.
The reason why this movie is relatively high (okay not too high) on the imdb starmeter is the Black actress in here, the one you see on the right on the poster here on imdb. Moses Ingram has appeared on The Queen's Gambit, one of the most successful (mini)series of the last year and her inclusion there gave this short film some more attention too. But she is nothing special at all in this film here. I must also say that her character seemed a bit racist to me on one occasion with how she talks about another character. The shocking thing is not what she said, but that we are still supposed to see her as likable despite what she said. Impossible for somebody with an objective mind. By the way, the character she was talking about is the one you find in the title here. Candace never appears in this film. Instead we get some random rambling about dolphins to creatre some pseudo depth and the pretty abysmal pseudo dramatic ending. So yeah, early on I thought I could be a bit more generous at least and give this one two more stars, but the quality is simply not there. It's not a weak film, it's a bad one. I see no potential here whatsoever, which has mostly to do with the script. Definitely more than with the acting, but, as I said, one of the two actresses is credited as a writer here as well, so no apologies for her. The White one that is whose biggest career credit is probably The Mentalist. Stella Baker. Okay, that's it. Shameful this really bad outcome even attracted some awards recognition on at least one occasion. Glad to see imdb voters see through this charade and gave it a low rating mostly, even if a four on the left side of the comma is still at least two numbers too high. Highly not recommended.
