HELEN
An 18-year-old girl called Joy has gone missing. Another girl called Helen is a few weeks away from leaving her care home. Helen is asked to \"play\" Joy in a police reconstruction that will retrace Joy's last known movements. Joy had everything: a loving family, a boyfriend, and a bright future. Helen, parentless, has lived in institutions all her life and has never been close to anyone. Gradually Helen begins to immerse herself into the role, visiting the people and places that Joy knew; quietly and carefully insinuating her way into the lost girl's life.
The haunting mood makes Helen far more affecting than its premise would suggest. The setting is a hybrid nowhereville (actually an amalgam of Liverpool, Birmingham, Dublin and Newcastle), composed of shiny offices, civic spaces, hotel rooms. Even private places are impersonal. Ole Birkeland’s photography is richly coloured but knowingly clinical, giving this elegant micro-budget film that eerie quality characteristic of a certain chilly lineage: Haneke, Egoyan, Antonioni – this park mystery being a direct descendant of Blow-Up. (Jonathan Romney)
- Annie Townsend - Helen
- Sandie Malia - Mrs. Thompson
- Dennis Jobling - Mr. Thompson
- Sonia Saville - Polizistin
- Danny Groenland - Danny
- Joe Lawlor
- Christine Molloy
- Ben Slater
- Ole Birkeland
- Simon Gillman
- Christine Molloy
- Dennis McNulty
- Lorna Barry
- Jouvan Fucinni
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