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Stephen Graham and Jodie Comer in Help (2021)

Review by chill-39628

Help

6/10

Brilliant acting, but generally poor otherwise

Both Comer and Graham gave excellent and empathetic performances as an overworked health and social care worker and person with (I assume lewy body) dementia. The writing and direction were poor however.

There is much ground to cover in a film covering the wider impacts of COVID-19 on health in the UK, but unfortunately this film only covered a fraction of this (exacerbation of health inequalities, social isolation for older persons, mental health condition prevalence increasing etc. Could have been considered).

It was quite overdramatised, which made it feel more fictional than it ought to be, lessening the effect of the film on the viewer.

Also some factual issues are present, Public Health England were blamed several times for Conservative minister's f*ck ups. Some of the stats at the end could have considered more recent data to give a more meaningful and powerful effect (the decrease in UK male and female life expectancy to pre-2011 levels, COVID-19 being the biggest killer of males in the UK in 2020 etc.).

I also didn't appreciate the ending (didn't have quite the same efficacy as the similar ending in Monty Python and The Holy Grail - not that the films are comparable).

This is a good film, but it could have been so much more.
  • chill-39628
  • Sep 27, 2021

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