Helen (2008 film)
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Running time | 79 minutes |
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| Language | English |
Helen is a 2008 drama film by Desperate Optimists, (Joe Lawlor and Christine Molloy), and was the first feature film made through their production company Desperate Optimists Productions.[1] It is often spoken of as an expansion or companion piece to their short film Joy.
Plot
[edit]Helen stars Annie Townsend as a teenage girl who, when asked by the police to play the stand-in for a reconstruction, realizes it gives her a chance to confront her own troubled past.
Cast
[edit]- Annie Townsend as Helen
- Dennis Jobling as Mr Thompson
- Sandie Malia as Mrs Thompson
- Danny Groenland as Danny
Release
[edit]Helen played in over 50 film festivals and was distributed across the UK in 2009 by New Wave.
Reception
[edit]Helen was acclaimed by critics such as Jonathan Romney in The Independent[2] and Philip French in The Observer who wrote: 'With echoes of Antonioni and Bresson, the story of a young woman's disappearance is one of the most remarkable British debuts of recent years.[3] Despite some misgivings on this first feature, Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian lauded the filmmakers as 'real talents with a distinctive, if evolving, film-making language of their own.'[4]
Critic and writer Sophie Mayer highlighted a mythic quality to the film, something which has also been mentioned in relation to Desperate Optimist's more recent Rose Plays Julie. She writes: 'Given the film's title and protagonist, it seems unlikely that Desperate Optimists weren't thinking, at least a little, about the most famous Helen in history. Rather than the story of Troy, or the Helen who tempts Faust, they rediscover - in a thrilling comment on cinema's star system and the viewer's desire to both desire and believe - the eidolon, a woman always performing her fragmented self.'[5]
References
[edit]- ^ Wigley, Sam (19 August 2021). "10 great films that don't have a Wikipedia page". British Film Institute.
- ^ Romney, Jonathan. "Molloy and Lawlor's haunting, missing-person study shows that homegrown art-house cinema is back from the dead". The Independent. Retrieved 7 December 2022.
- ^ Philip, French. "With echoes of Antonioni and Bresson, the story of a young woman's disappearance is one of the most remarkable British debuts of recent years". The Observer.
- ^ Bradshaw, Peter (1 May 2009). "Helen Film Review". The Guardian. Retrieved 7 December 2022.
- ^ Mayer, Sophie. "Desperate Optimists, Helen [Review]". Academia. Wide Open. Retrieved 7 December 2022.