Candyman
Nia DaCosta’s “Candyman” expands on several ideas introduced in Bernard Rose’s 1992 adaptation of Clive Barker’s The Forbidden. Unfortunately, it takes a turn that makes it sillier, and not as impactful, than it might have been had it just stayed the course. Gentrification, urban legends and black trauma all remain key parts of the screenplay by DaCosta, Jordan Peele and Win Rosenfeld, but how it ends up muddies the message it wants to get across into something more “destined to happen,” and that turns it into a film completely different than what Rose did in the earlier film.
The world of “Candyman” still rests in Cabrini Green in Chicago. We start in 1977, where a young boy is doing laundry in one of the high rise apartments in the area. A mysterious man with a hook for a hand comes and startles him, even though he offers him candy. The police are outside, and come when the screams happen. Cut to 2019, and the area is now modernized, with swanky apartments where people like Anthony McCoy (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), an aspiring artist, and his girlfriend, Brianna (Teyonah Parris), a budding art curator, live. A night with Brianna’s brother and his boyfriend gets Anthony looking into the story of Helen from the original “Candyman,” and visiting the less-developed part of Cabrini Green. That trip inspires Anthony creatively, and his installation- Say My Name– is bold and imaginative…and also lets loose the titular killer.
It’s important to realize that DaCosta’s film is, in fact, a legacy sequel to Rose’s film, so we do have events from the first movie directly referenced here. That is a blessing and a curse; the film starts off by looking to address the idea of how amplifying black trauma through art can be a form of gentrification, and illuminates ideas of white perspective on black narrative that the first one explored so well by having Helen at the center of the film. As the storyteller at the center of the film, that sets Anthony’s path in motion, is William Burke (Colman Domingo), the boy from the opening flashback, and he is a great person to use to ground the story of Candyman as myth, as urban legend, and as tragedy. The curse for this film being a legacy sequel comes from a narrative choice that feels too “on the nose,” but also complicates what the film is trying to do thematically. There’s a reason why the third act in Rose’s film succeeds and DaCosta’s film doesn’t, and it’s because in the latter, the motivations behind the urban legend get convoluted into a different type of retribution, and when you recognize a name in the cast listing, you’ll probably figure it out.
As flawed as the movie gets narratively, it has as much going for it in terms of ominous atmosphere and tone as the original film, even though Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe’s score- though good- cannot hold a candle to Philip Glass’s music for the original. Visually, the cinematography by John Guleserian almost feels more unnerving in lighting the film’s less run-down production design compared to what the first one looks like, and the use of shadow puppets to tell the story of Candyman is an inspired, disturbing choice. DaCosta is sure-footed at telling this story, and knows how to work within genre; if only they had kept moving in the direction they started out going, this “Candyman” might have been as memorable, and worthwhile, as its predecessor was.
