Candy

It's hard not to compare and contrast 'Candy' with 'Love and Death', they are about the same crime and were released within (essentially) the same year.

From what I have read, I believe Candy was focused more on the actual facts of the case and recreating history. In Love and Death, I believe it was more based on the emotional side of it.

Many will disagree, but I ate with Elizabeth Olsen, I found her strange portrayal of Candy amazing. The perfect amount of church lady and devil. Plastic and very real.

Jessica did a wonderful job, and this might be awful to say - who am I to judge anyone - the IRL Candy or Jessica freaking one of the prettiest women in the world Biel? But I found Jessica's intense life like portrayal made it almost hard to watch.

Both did a great job. Wish I could switch out some characters for others!

I watched this last year and thought it was good but after watching love and death which did a great job of really showing the human side and had a lot more emotion this doesn't seem like a good representation. In this version Candy seemed cold and calculating, in love and death you could see how the murder could be more impulsive and emotional, maybe it's to do with the writing and maybe it's to do with the actresses playing Candy, Elizabeth Olsen seemed much more well rounded and showed a human side that I think is more relatable and Jessica Beal's Candy seemed cold and narcissistic. It's pretty weird they did two versions of this story so close together, both are good but love and death was the winner for me.

There is an epidemic of streaming crime docudramas, they are inexpensive to make - a prewritten relatable narrative, a preexisting cadre of voyeurs and prebaked external tension. Often these preordained advantages breed laziness and produce sloppy television.

This, though, is a strong setup, introducing the key characters and quietly building Hitchcockian suspense towards the revelation of this heinous murder. The cast is strong and Jessica Biel is fabulous, leading the line as the eponymous character. Candy is superficially a suburban supermom, but also a passive-aggressive charred-martyr who courts adulation.

After one outing, Candy is entertaining and enjoyable, raising anticipation for the second instalment. The consecutive-day episode-delivery compromise is good, minimising the wait without the daunting one-day dump.

How sad that a lonely woman wound up with a friend like Candy.

How fun that actress Melanie Lynskey and her husband Jason Ritter was in the same project with her!

This is a true story about life and how different people react to situations. We will never ever know what really happened in that house.

Having 5 episodes over 5 days was kind of fun (might be a bad choice of words). Kept us wanting more, but not having to wait too long.

Once again, some reviewers are commenting on some of the actors physical appearances. Not acceptable. The good news is, karma will bit them in their ugly mugs soon enough.

I thoroughly enjoyed the limited series. If you need long action sequences a la Marvel, you might get bored. But the story is compelling and even engrossing nonetheless. The late 70s and early 80s setting was masterful. Clothes, cars, decor, fads (eg jogging). My high rating of an 8, however, is largely due to the acting and cinematography. There are several iconic scenes that I watched more than once. The two male leads were great. Co-star Lynskey (Betty Gore) was even better. Then there was Biel. Wow. What a performance. I never considered her to be a bad actor before, I just never considered her. At all. No more. Can't wait to see what she does next. Lastly kudos to the producers for making this a 5 part series. A movie wouldn't do it justice. But more episodes and definitely more seasons would've been overkill. Just right.