Candy Jar
2018
Action / Comedy / Drama / Romance

Candy Jar
2018
Action / Comedy / Drama / Romance
Plot summary
Dueling high school debate champs who are at odds on just about everything forge ahead with ambitious plans to get into the colleges of their dreams.
Director
Top cast
Tech specs
720p.WEB 1080p.WEBMovie Reviews
Fun premise but clunky execution
Sweet high-school romcom set in the weird world of competitive debating
Lona and Bennett have been competing since kindergarten, maybe egged by their mothers who seem to have some issues that need to be resolved. And now college is beckoning them - Havard - or Yale - or not. Partly to look good on their CVs they are in the school debate club. But here everything gets very strange as competitive debating seems to have degenerated into a kind of bizarre speed talking contest in which points of evidence are made so fast that scarcely anyone understands.
Lona and Bennett are in some ways hugely similar and in others diametrically opposed so boy - girl, black - white, but both with single mothers, both geeks, bookworms, loners, and both very much attached to Kathy, a school counselor whose room is filled with the candy jars that give the film its title.
It's an unusual idea but it makes the film fresh and different. For me, the nonsensical debating process was a bit of a distraction, but maybe the very fact that we don't understand what they're struggling to achieve, let alone the actual arguments they make, maybe that helps us focus on them and how they matter more.