Sadly Over-hyped

Good concept, poorly executed.

Don't listen to the negative reviews

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

17 year old Candice longs to escape her seaside town and finds solace in her imagination. When her disillusionment calcifies into an obsession with a troubled stranger, she becomes entangled with a dangerous local gang. Weird and rather boring to say the least 'Kissing Candice' is no different than most low budget and straight to dvd films that stars a bunch of unknown actors which i've never seen in my entire life before today. The acting was below average, the storyline was rather confusing and just plain tired to follow and it's an overall waste of a film.

Kissing Candice is the debut feature from Northern Irish writer/director Aoife McArdle, whose career thus far has been primarily in music videos and commercials (she's probably best known for the controversial American Psycho-inspired video for Bryan Ferry's 2014 song, "Loop De Li", and the truncated short film for U2's 2015 song, "Every Breaking Wave"). When a music video director moves onto features, problems can arise, and Kissing Candice is guilty of many of them. The whole thing plays like a two-hour Lorde video; all deep primary colours (especially red) with no discernible diegetic source; self-congratulatory and often belaboured visual symbolism; oblique narrative justification for many of the scenes; an achronological structure with unannounced flashbacks (think Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent, except not nearly as well handled), and portentous staring into the middle-distance as the actors emote at one another instead of talk. The film is especially weak in terms of narrative - the entire plot takes up no more than a half hour at most, with the rest all mood and tone.However, for all that, I rather liked it. The plot, such as it is, is actually built on an interesting enough hook. Set on an unnamed council estate in Dundalk some time after the cessation of The Troubles, Candice (Ann Skelly) is a contemplative, but rebellious youngster (imagine the love child of Terrence Malick and Larry Clark). As the film begins, she is in the midst of an intense dream involving a young man she doesn't recognise. Several days later, she is stunned when she meets kind-hearted local gang member Jacob (Ryan Lincoln), who looks exactly like the man in her dreams. Jacob has been butting heads with increasing frequency with the gang's leader, Dermot (an excellent Conall Keating), who may, or may not, have been involved with the disappearance of a young boy from the estate, Caleb (Jason Cullen), who has also been featuring in Candice's recent dreams. Anyone familiar with McArdle's work will instantly see the thematic uniformity - like many of her music videos, Kissing Candice depicts troubled youth, cut free from adult supervision and influence, going to extremes. And whilst McArdle proves fairly inept at handling the narrative, the film is aesthetically extremely very well mounted, as we're literally placed within Candice's not-entirely-stable psyche from the off (the hallucinatory opening sequence is especially good in this respect). As the plot outline may suggest, there's a definite vibe of Ryan Gosling's critically reviled (but actually rather good) directorial debut Lost River, and McArdle is obviously influenced by Nicolas Winding Refn and, to a lesser extent, David Lynch.McArdle is clearly talented. However, it might help her career if she directs someone else's script next time, as her writing is what really lets her down here. Nevertheless, it's well acted, looks amazing, and, as debuts go, is not too bad at all.7/10

So glad I went to see this film at TIFF last week. From the breathtaking visuals, extraordinary sound design and the magnetic performance of Irish newcomer Ann Skelly playing Candice, this weird movie had me gripped all the way through to the final credits. The dreamy atmosphere is punctuated by dark moments of small town frustration/violence and the eerie support cast lend a menacing air throughout. My favorite thing about this film, besides all the obvious technical mastery, is the constant feeling of impending doom that surrounds Candice like a swirling fog. They have managed to nail what it feels like to be a teenage girl growing up in an oppressive (whether real or imagined) environment. 'Kissing Candice' certainly whet my appetite for seeing more from writer/director Aoife McArdle - an auteur to watch out for in the future. Can't wait to see what she does next. Impressive debut.