Helen (2009)

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Helen Leonard (Ashley Judd) is a talented pianist and university instructor. She has a great second husband David (Goran Visnjic) and teenage daughter Julie (Alexia Fast). She is fascinated with student Mathilda (Lauren Lee Smith). She is racked with anxiety and gets hospitalized where she finds Mathilda. Dr. Sherman (Alberta Watson) is her therapist. After struggling back home, she tries suicide and gets sent back to the psych ward. She finds solace with fellow patient Mathilda and eventually goes off to live with her.Ashley Judd certainly tries hard to do some big time acting. Quite frankly, the acting is perfectly good. Lauren Lee Smith has a good role. However the movie has too many slow moving quiet scenes. It doesn't move enough to be compelling. It is a slow tired depressing watch. It's probably realistic but I've never liked watching depressed characters. They're a downer and this movie is a downer, too.

As a survivor of severe clinical depression --- yes, it can be a killer --- I had a special interest in this film. I could relate to much of it. Yet I'm not sure I would recommend it to someone in the middle of depression. It is very much a "downer." Indeed my wife's comment was "I don't want to look at it. I've been through it." Having said that it is an extremely well executed film in all regards. Someone without any history of depression might not understand it or might think it exaggerates. To someone like myself, it was all too realistic. To someone in the middle of depression, it could push them over the edge. Clinical depression is right behind heart disease and cancer as a killer except that its victims die of suicide. Certainly anything that focuses attention on it such as this movie is good. In addition to its horror, depression too often is a "closet" disease in which the victim feels hopelessly lonely as was evident here as Helen tries unsuccessfully to fake normalcy. (Been there...done that...) I believe this film can be useful to the family of anyone suffering depression because it illustrates the despair of the victim and the immense stress on family and professional life. But it could be dangerous for the actual victim. But thank you for tackling a subject that too often is taboo.

Having worked in the mental health field for many years I can tell you this film does an outstanding job both in script, directing and acting with portraying a woman with major depression and suicidality. The performances by Ashley Judd, Goran Visnjic and Lauren Lee Smith (also Alexia Fast) were at least Oscar noteworthy. Why has this film not gotten more attention? And I am surprised by the rather mediocre vote average on this website. Most likely because it is portraying DEPRESSION and BIPOLAR DISORDER in all their worst forms and that isn't easy to watch. It isn't easy to live with nor is it easy to watch the deterioration of people you love. Ashley Judd does an outstanding job playing Helen, a twice married woman and mother of a teenager daughter who suffers a relapse of her Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). Goran plays her lawyer husband who has no knowledge of her previous psychiatric experiences and must watch his wife sink into the abyss. What I didn't understand were the reactions of Helen's students at the college. They wouldn't have known what was affecting her, it could be cancer so would they have walked out? I think someone would have inquired on her medical condition. Also you cannot terminate someone with a medical problem or can you?Mental Illness is a subject we don't discuss but with the prognosis that in 10 years it will be the number one common health problem in the world and is the leading cause of disability with Bipolar Disorder are number 6th as leading cause of disability and then you have ADHD, Autism and the Pervasisve Developmental Disorders which affect 1 in 110 children, then you see the responsibility and need for film makers to make these films. *********SPOILER************** Also portrayed in this film is Ashley Judd's character Helen getting treatment called Electo Convulsive Shock Therapy which is a very real treatment and performed in local hospitals all over the world. What the movie doesn't show and is the really ugly side of Major Depression are those young men and women who chronically try to commit suicide in various ways. I had a patient whose wrists were so heavily scarred from slicing it made me wince to look at them and she could take a light bulb or a jar of cosmetics and break it in a second to slash.

This movie is way too long for the events it depicts, and way too dark both in content and in the film. I understand the under lighted scenes are supposed to reflect the darkness of depression, but it's as annoying to watch two hours of no one bothering to turn on a light bulb as it is to watch the scenes being drawn out for time needlessly.I also found it was a completely predictable story.That being said the score was really good, as was the acting from everyone in this movie. If a half hour more was moved to the cutting room floor it wouldn't be missed and the movie would be better for it, but it would still be a movie few people will want to sit through, a dark drama on clinical depression.