Helen

A college student, Joy, goes missing and the police enlist the aid of another student, Helen, to re-enact Joy's last movements. Helen, an orphan brought up in an institution, lacks everything Joy possessed - family, personality,intelligence, a boy friend. But as her impersonation progresses she starts to hijack Joy's life, including her family and boy friend.

This great idea for a film is sabotaged by poor direction and acting. Apart from the lead actress, the actors are wooden (and occasionally downright bad -- I think I could do better myself!). The direction is amateurish.

Camera work and editing is professional and well done. The script is adequate.

I suspect the producers found themselves financially strapped and had to make do with second rate actors. Helen has the seeds of a good film; seeds that fail to sprout.

Worth seeing if you are studying film

I saw about twenty films at the 2008 Sydney Film Festival, and Helen was probably my favourite feature. Steadfast in mystery, atmosphere, weirdness and emotional bleakness, the film follows the slow-growing obsession of the eponymous heroine with the former life of another girl, Joy, who disappeared in the local park one day, and whom Helen is 'playing' in a police reconstruction of the event.

The film has a beautiful cryptic quality, not in any conventional kind of whodunnit sense, but as regards both the elusive character of Helen and the nature of the film itself. The long, unbroken takes, great silences and restrained, almost self-effacing interactions amongst the characters generate fascination and curiosity. Is it some kind of hyper-naturalism? Or the opposite of naturalism? The players are often facing away from each other, or off the screen, or shot from behind, or just so that you can't see their faces. When a creepily patronising policewoman arrives to brief Joy's schoolmates about the reconstruction of the disappearance, half the scene is viewed via its reflection in a mirror.

Some of the dialogue is bizarre in its expositional nature, enough to prompt amusement, yet at others times it is completely evasive. Helen feels such a great hollow within herself (she has been raised in care, and her past and parentage are shrouded in mystery) that her vocalisation mostly consists of dull murmured statements. The strongest indication that some of the weirdness is in droll taste is an amusing scene in which a morose-looking teacher appears to do the worst job in the world in trying inspire the students with talk of 'blue skies thinking'.

The film is framed by metronomically perfect editing, fades to black, abstraction-making shots of dappled light filtering through park trees and a glacial ambient score. It reminded me at times of David Lynch in its poetic design. It offers a unique vision of a situation which opens onto multiple mysteries, most importantly the mystery of what is inside Helen, played with supernatural understatement by Annie Townsend. And it is emotionally confronting, with some moments that are very difficult to bear. This is beautiful cinema.

The film is awful! I only saw this because the rental company thinks it is the similarly named film 'Helen', starring Ashley Judd.

In this UK/Irish Helen, the acting is terribly stilted, the film constantly uses the same slowly panning camera technique which just becomes tedious. You can see pauses where the actors are trying to recall dialogue etc.

I've got to be honest, I think all this lottery funding is continuing to lead to hopeless UK films being funded and produced. I don't know why this film would have won an award.

The only think I can say is that technical of film and props etc was good.

To all those amateur critics out there, (and I am one of them...), not all films need to be acted and directed in the same way.

This was an absorbing, mesmerising film. Beautifully shot, acted, and directed with the intention to empathise with the single character, 'Helen'.

Yes they used stilted narrative and 'wooden' characters around her, but wasn't this intentional? To draw the viewer into Helen's view of the world and people around her.

It may not appeal to everyone but for me it worked.

I would recommend this film to anyone that is willing to look at the world through another persons eyes.

A drama about a teenager, Helen, who has been in care for most of her life.

A student at the local school Helen attends has gone missing and Helen volunteers to take the part of the missing girl in a police reconstruction. She gradually immerses herself in the role of the missing student and meets the girl's parents possibly as a way of trying to find what was missing from her own life in care and possibly as a way of finding her own identity.

A nice idea for a story but not big enough for a feature length film. A slow movie which is patchy in places.