Boxing Helena
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Movie Reviews of Boxing Helena
Movie Review: Boxing Helena
Summary: 4 Stars
"Boxing Helena" is directed by the daughter of David Lynch, Jennifer Chambers Lynch. This is the only reason I wanted to see this movie. I always get curious when the offspring of a filmmaker decides to follow in their parents footsteps, but when it's the offspring of one of my favorite directors...That only makes it more interesting. And "Boxing Helena" is an interesting movie, very much in the vein of a David Lynch film. This film deals with dreams, sexual obsession, and a whole jubilee of weirdness. Watching the film, it amazed me that a woman wrote it. This film feels like it's written by a man, which I'll explain in a moment. The movie is about a doctor named Nick Cavanaugh (Julian Sands), who clearly has a few screws loose. He's got a beautiful girlfriend and, after the death of his mother, a mansion. But there's one thing he doesn't have and that is Helena (Sherilyn Fenn, 'Of Mice & Men'). Nick harbors a full-on obsession for Helena, a woman he had a one-night stand with and can't stop thinking about. He even climbs the tree outside her window to spy into her room. Warned by a fellow doctor/friend (Art Garfunkel) not to mess with her, Nick invites her to a party only to have his ego crushed when she leaves with another man. Fate steps in, however, when she leaves her purse at the party and Nick creates circumstances that cause her to come to his house and get it. While leaving his house, Helena is hit by a car and Nick is forced to perform emergency surgery to save her. He amputates her legs. Now Helena, legless and helpless, is trapped in Nick's house (think of it as "Misery" in reverse). Besides not letting her go and amputating her body parts, Nick doesn't harm her. The man loves Helena and doesn't want to hurt her, but simply wants her to have feelings for him too. What it is he sees in Helena isn't really made obvious. Besides beauty, there's not much going for her. She's rude, narcissistic, and cold. Anyway, the remainder of the film consists of Nick trying to keep Helena for himself while her boyfriend Ray (Bill Paxton, doing some of the worst acting he's ever done) looks for her. The ending is contrived and too reminiscent of earlier and later David Lynch films. The films weakness is both the ending and Paxton and the director's decision to use soft-core porn music for her score. There are also a few scenes that look like outtakes from "Wild Orchid." Meanwhile, you have Bill Paxton acting like he had never done so. His facial expressions and the way he recites his dialogue in this film is bad. I don't know if you can call it overacting, but it's definitely bad acting. Other than that, the acting is solid. Sands is a good casting choice, because he really portrays how pathetic and lonely this character is. Fenn is good too, making the character easy to hate without making us hate her too much. My only other complaint is the DVD. No subtitles and the audio track is less than spectacular. There's a lot of whispering in the movie (a lot of yelling, though, too) and subtitles would've been nice. Since this is the only film Lynch has directed, it's hard to say what she could accomplish if she made more movies. But this film shows her as a promising young talent, whose biggest mistake was drawing a little too much inspiration from daddy.
GRADE: B
Movie Review: A Farewell To Arms....And Legs
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a hard movie to defend, so most of the time I don't even bother to try. I really won't even try now, but just say that I really like this movie and I'm not sure why. It's reputation as a lousy film is almost legendary. Of course when you consider Michael Bay's filmography, you might want to re-evaluate this movie, or maybe not.
Julian Sands(an actor I love) is a rich surgeon obsessed with a woman he had a one nighter with. The woman, Helena, is played by Sherilyn Fenn, so it's easy to understand his obsession. However, Helena is a crass, mean, all around unpleasant woman who's on the search solely for boytoys. Julian's attempts to lure her in result in her being hit by a car. He now has the perfect opportunity to posses her as he brings her back to his home and begins a process of dismembering her. Julian quits his job and cuts off communication with his friends, even dumping his girlfriend so he can take care of Helena. She throws endless insults at him, screams at him, belittles him, and it makes you wonder just what it is that he's so in love with. Psychological games are played out between the two, and soon some sex is thrown into the mix(Sands brings home one of his tasty looking nurses and makes Helena watch him have sex with her to everybody's favorite Enigma song, Sadness Part 1). Meanwhile, Helena's sortaboyfriend, Bill Paxton, is trying to find out what happened to her. Now, this plot may sound kinda grim and gruesome, but it really isn't quite as demented as you'd think. I don't know why, but the movie sort of reminds me of one of those softcore Skinemax type movies even though there isn't much sex in it. Sands gives a decent performance, but his character is such a pathetic, whiny, lovestruck schmuck that you just wish you could reach into the tv and smack him one. As usual, Fenn will make your eyes bug out like something from a Looney Tunes cartoon. Yummy!! Apparently Madonna was originally supposed to have this role, and then the role went to Kim Basinger after Madonna dropped out. Personally I'm glad neither of them got it coz Fenn's my baby.
So no, I can't honestly recommend this movie to people coz the numbers say you might not care much for this one. I'm just here to tell you that I like it. So there.
Movie Review: Boxing Helena - The Impossibility of Capturing Beauty
Summary: 4 Stars
By reading the other reviews, you'll gather this film is not for everyone. I owned this on VHS tape and decided to buy the DVD -- primarily because I think it will be unobtainable in the future. The underlying theme (as I see it) is the unsuccessful attempt of one man to capture and possess beauty -- in the form of a female form. Men perceive beauty in various manifestations -- a colorful sunset, a field of fresh flowers, reflections on a body of water, etc. Included in this catalog is the beauty of women. Non-rationalizing men will misinterpret this attraction to beauty as a sexual magnet. The protagonist of the film is not of this ilk. He is mild, sensitive, caring, attentive, but at the same time totally unconscious of his impossible desires to isolate beauty as if it were a statue. He does everything he can to discard the troublesome aspects to his imagination -- wherein one will read of all the horrific undertakings (as posted by many others). But, these horrors are merely symbolic. The thrust of the protagonist's motivations revolve around his unconscious desires to obtain and hold mastery over the essence of beauty (however truncated). He has no inkling that beauty is elusive, intangible, something that stirs the soul but cannot be subject to possession. (Spoiler) The entire events are revealed to be nothing but a dream, taking the movie out of the realm of mere horror and firmly placing it into a psychological mind-exercise. The film is bound to be misinterpreted/misrepresented because most viewers will not grasp the element of the male psyche as interpreting all obstacles to his longings as mere physical impediments (albeit in perhaps an overly graphic, realistic manner). The film triple-underscores this terrible shortcoming in the male unconscious -- something that must be brought to his full awareness for the sake of any/all viable male-female relationships. Because of the inherent complexity of the subtext, the movie will probably only be appreciated by symbolists and intellectuals.Movie Review: Disturbing and unforgettable
Summary: 4 Stars
To fully savor this movie you need to suspend your judgement about the implausibility of the plotline, the stilted and artificial dialogue and the logistics of the central characters' lives. Once that is accomplished, you can enjoy the riveting sensuality of this production. That is, if you will yourself to overlook the deeply disturbing idea of a man resorting to deliberately mutilating a woman just so that he can keep her company.
The movie protrays the total and all-consuming sexual obsession that drives an urbane, wealthy, good looking and successful surgeon (Julian Sands) into being a grovelling submissive who repeatedly tolerates being humiliated by a beautiful woman (Sherilynn Fenn). The surgeon is the proverbial man who has everything, including the socially appropriate nice girlfriend. But he is driven to insanity by the woman who is initially out of his reach.
At the heart of the narrative is a purportedly deep psychological compulsion. This is the re-creation with a romantic partner of an unhealthy relationship with a rejecting parent. The movie shows short vignettes of the surgeon as a lonely little boy being ignored by his beautiful and seductive mother whose attention he desperately craves.
Whatever its other shortcomings, the movie is refreshingly different from others of this genre in its portrayal of sexual expression.The acting, soft-focus camera work and sensually swelling background music mingle to create an almost other-worldly dimension of eroticism. This is a marked change from the crude, mechanistic and predictable depiction of impersonal sexuality of most R-rated movies. For this reason alone, "Boxing Helena" is worth viewing.
Movie Review: I LOVED THIS FILM!
Summary: 4 Stars
When I ask people if they've ever seen this movie, they all say no. I think this movie has been "slept on" so-to-speak. I've seen it a few times (mostly because I tend to see things the second and third time around that I missed the first time.) Granted, that the idea of the movie is a little twisted. It's basically a story about a man's love and/or obsession for a beautiful woman. The object of his desire shows nothing but her loathing towards this simple man and wants nothing to do with him. The only thing he really wants, is for her to love him back (mind you - this is MY interpretation of the movie.) I guess the trip part about this film is how he manipulates the situation and makes it so that she NEEDS him to survive - to feed her, to bathe her, to tend to her. Perhaps I just have a twisted sense of humor, but I thought this film was GREAT! It's old, but if you ever get a chance, pick it up at your local video store. It's definitely worth watching!