Netflix definitely likes to shoot movies in a school setting! Producer of a slew of films featuring high school students (including the mixed Les Potes),the platform recurred with the comedy Candy Jar ! This Netflix Original tells the story of Bennett and Lona, two students who hate each other but who will have to form a team. Two characters who get closer while everything opposes them? The recipe is not new and works quite well.
A history of oppositions
Candy Jar is a film about debate and especially about oppositions. Opposition of ideas? Not just. Bennett and Lona, two brilliant students from their high school debate club, don't like each other, to say the least, but it's not just a matter of intellectual rivalry. The two characters simply do not have the same lives: Bennett (Jacob Latimore) comes from a privileged background where his mother, very protective, is a model of social success while Lona (Sami Gayle) is rather part of the American middle class. A rivalry that can also be found in their respective parents: Both mothers seem to harbor a certain enmity based on their old memories as classmates.
But if everything seems to oppose them, they still have several hooked atoms. Their main focus is debate. In the film, confrontations between debaters resemble speed exercises. The important thing is to give as many arguments as possible and to have a very good speech rate. Bennett and Lona excel when it comes to debating, but this obsession with perfection makes them miss out on life's simple pleasures. We quickly understand that the two characters have no friends and live only for their studies and their desire to enroll in prestigious universities (Yale for Bennett and Harvard for Lona).
An inevitable rapprochement
The two students are also very close to their guidance counsellor (Helen Hunt), who guides them on their own futures by systematically offering them sweets. Hence the name of the film Candy Jar since the course of the film makes us quickly understand that this character is the only person able to reunite Bennett and Lona.
Even if some sequences are very predictable (the two protagonists of the film will inexorably get closer and start a love affair), Candy Jar sometimes surprises by its treatment far from the American success story, the two characters going from disappointments to disappointments. They are not necessarily in agreement with what they are and it is by getting closer and teaming up that they will understand it. They had become robots programmed to succeed at all costs without worrying about their constructions as teenagers.
Finally, a few words about the staging. The realization is rather classic but some visual finds are to be highlighted. We will also highlight the rather interesting casting with Christina Hendricks (Lona's mother) and Helen Hunt, which has been rather rare in recent years. The two actors Jacob Latimore and Sami Gayle lead their boats rather well and sign two convincing performances.
Candy Jar is a film that can be followed rather easily. The viewer will have a good time and will become attached to the sympathetic cast of the film. When it is viewed, the feature film nevertheless gives certain impressions of déjà vu by its environment. It's still an honest teen comedy.
Candy Jar trailer:
