"Through love... We become someone else." A sequel of sorts to 2008's nine minute short Joy, Helen takes up where its predecessor left off but it's fleshed out narrative can't escape the brevity of the original. Orphan Helen (Townsend) is a college student that works in a hotel to make ends meet. When classmate Joy disappears in a local park, the police ask Helen to help reconstruct Joy's final moments so they can piece the puzzle together. Bereft of a personality of her own, Helen throws herself into the 'role', wearing Joy's jacket, hanging out with her parents (Jobling and Maila) and dating Joy's boyfriend.
Similar in some respects to the Canadian cult film I Love A Man In Uniform, Helen is an interesting take on a personality disorder. A character-driven film, its success will rely totally on the character of Helen and whether or not she is interesting enough to carry the story. She is, but Lawlor and Malloy (who also wrote the script) don't give her anything particularly interesting to do. Instead, the directors fall back on loooooong shots (sometimes repeated) of Helen staring into the distance or wandering about the park and places Joy was last seen. There isn't enough story here to keep any momentum going and even at a brief seventy-nine minutes it feels too long.
There are some aspects of characterisation that don't ring true, too. Joy's boyfriend and estate agent Danny (Groenland) doesn't seem at all puzzled when Helen, an 18-year-old student, comes to view a house worth £600,000. Neither does he show any pain over the loss of his missing girlfriend. He's not alone: the performances too can be accused of being emotionally stunted but this can be passed off by the dreamlike state the film is directed. Helen feels like it's a waking dream, caught somewhere between sleep and consciousness, between Zvyagintsev and Mallick.
However, there is enough here to suggest that Lawlor and Malloy will one day make a great film. Their slow, patient story-telling doesn't smack of debut nervousness, there's no clever 'lookee here' shots and they know how to get inside a character's head and show it to the audience without relying on exposition. Despite a so-so first attempt, their next feature will iron out the creases.
