Published in Arts in the City, Issue 2, September 2006

Yes, Luke Davies used to take smack and yes, that’s him playing the milkman in the film adaptation of his 1997 novel, Candy. Does that clear everything up? Davies has had a case of deja interview since the film, starring Heath Ledger and Abbie Cornish, was injected into cinemas earlier this year. ‘Certainly the questions about how much of this comes from raw experience have been revisited,’ he says. ‘I found myself thinking about things that I hadn’t thought about in years. Some elements are the same but then I discovered that in the nine years since the book came out that I’ve changed and my perceptions of things have changed.’

The poet, novelist and playwright added another string to his bow when he co-wrote the screenplay for Candy with director, Neil Armfield, whom Davies describes as someone ‘who above all has a wonderful sense of fun and what it is to play.’ The process of translating the book to the screen was marked by sacrifice, with much of the humour of the novel being left behind to make room for the sadness of the story. The result is intense. ‘I believe that the essential emotional texture of the novel remained in the film, but they are extremely different,’ says Davies. ‘The film is so compressed compared to the novel.’ At the Melbourne Writers Festival this year, Davies and Armfield will present a Q and A session and discuss deleted scenes from the film.