Candy Review: A Contemplative Peek at the Human Lives Behind a True-Crime Horror

Blending the mundane with the macabre, the true-crime series prefers to examine how lives are lived rather than how a life was lost.

Candy
Photo: Hulu

In the summer of 1980, Candy Montgomery, a God-fearing housewife from Wylie, Texas, visited her friend, Betty Gore, to pick up a swimsuit. By the time Candy left her friend’s house, Betty would lay dead in her garage, having been struck 41 times with an axe. The murder was one of the most notorious crimes in Texas history, so it was a given—particularly in our true crime-obsessed era—that it would eventually become the source of its own prestige drama series. And, sure enough, Hulu’s Candy is one of two new shows based on the crime (HBO’s Love and Death, from creator David E. Kelley, will premiere later this year).

Though not lacking morbid intrigue, what’s most compelling about this dour five-part series is that it focuses more intently on the domestic lives and everyday troubles of its subjects rather than it does on the disturbing turn of events that made them infamous. Candy prefers to examine how the madness of a monotonous life can kill someone spiritually, and it’s most interesting when it locates the humanity that even the most depraved among us possess.

Starring Jessica Biel as the eponymous axe murderer, Candy is occasionally too drawn out and tonally mercurial, particularly in its second and third flashback-heavy episodes. And yet, thanks largely to its deliberately contemplative attention to place, mood, and time, along with its simmeringly eerie score and standout performances from Biel, Melanie Lynskey, Timothy Simons, and Pablo Schreiber, the series turns into an anxious, engrossing pressure cooker.

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As a dual narrative bouncing between the lives of Candy and Betty (Lynskey), Candy wrings tension and tenderness from the ways that these women find themselves boxed into their suffocatingly mundane lives. Candy’s orderly life leaves little room for any spontaneity or individuality. She’s so beholden to her domestic duties and sense of moral righteousness that, when she finds herself sexually awakened by a friend’s sumptuous new love life, she embarks on her own casual affair with Betty’s straight-laced husband, Allan (Schreiber).

As for Betty, her mild-mannered personality prevents her from finding much success, either professionally and personally. She’s trapped in a home life that often belies a false sense of comfort—and one that increasingly spells out her doom. Betty and Candy, as depicted here, are two sides of the same coin: They’re longing for something that will fill the void that comes with the endlessly repetitious cycle of domestic life. The terror, alas, results from one’s pursuit of happiness directly interfering with the other’s fraying stability.

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A late replacement for Elisabeth Moss, Biel is an apt choice to play Candy, as the role blends aspects of her troubled character from The Sinner and the religious yet rebellious teen that she played on 7th Heaven. Biel taps into Candy’s deep-seated impulses, allowing us to see both her gentleness and ruthlessness in equal measure, while never letting us in on the depths of her desires. While the show’s writing can sometimes favor a simplistic reading of Candy, Biel’s performance, all quietly broiling desperation, is nothing if not ambiguous.

Though ultimately at its best in its tightly structured, Michael Uppendahl-directed first episode, which finds the hell in the humdrum and successfully percolates with looming dread, Candy’s exploration of a suppressed woman pushed to her limits is achingly wry and wicked. The show’s consideration of the suffering that paves the way for murder stand outs in a true-crime genre that too often forgets about the lives behind the horror.

Score: 
 Cast: Jessica Biel, Melanie Lynskey, Timothy Simons, Pablo Schreiber  Network: Hulu

Will Ashton

Will Ashton is a freelance entertainment writer based in Pittsburgh, PA. He studied journalism and film at Ohio University, and his writing can be found in a variety of print and online publications, including Slate, Indiewire, Insider, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, CinemaBlend, and Collider. He also co-hosts the weekly film review podcast, Cinemaholics, alongside Jon Negroni.

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