Latest news on Goran's film "Helen" w/Ashley Judd

[AzizalSaqr]

From: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/melissa-s ... 65549.html

Melissa SilversteinWrites about Women and Pop Culture
Posted: July 30, 2010 03:13 PM

Interview with Sandra Nettlebeck: Writer/Director of Helen

I didn't really know much about Helen (except that it was going to be released this summer) until I got an email from Sandra Nettlebeck, the director asking me what I knew about when her film was coming out. I was surprised to get the email from a woman who has a track record (Mostly Martha) and has a film that premiered at Sundance and that has a very high profile star (Ashley Judd.) But that's the business and films get lost and lots of time don't even get released. The good news is that 18 months after its premiere at Sundance, Helen will finally see the light of day this weekend in NYC and shortly thereafter on DVD.

Sandra Nettlebeck answered some questions about the film.

Women & Hollywood: In the press notes you talk about how you were inspired by your friend's suicide to tell this story. Why did you work so hard and long (10 years) to get this film made?

Sandra Nettlebeck: I was profoundly shaken by the death of my friend. The terrible loss, the painful questions and self-doubts that inevitably come with such an experience stayed with me. But it wasn't until three years later, when I read an article in The New Yorker by Andrew Solomon about his battle with and survival of his own depression, that I started working on Helen. Andrew's story of survival inspired the story of Helen, and I felt it was a hugely important story to tell. So many people are affected by this deadly illness, and so many people still know so little about it. I am convinced that the lack of information, support and acceptance that clouds clinical depression costs lives every day. I wanted to do my part in trying to change that. This kind of motivation, to feel that you have something to say that will matter, make a difference, possibly help other people, goes a very long way.

W&H: Mental illness is a very common theme in films yet we usually see other people commenting on the person who is ill. Here you give us almost an x-ray of a person living with depression. Why was that important to you?

SN: It was important to me to try and tell the story from the perspective of Helen. We've seen plenty of films about mental illness, addiction, etc. from the perspective of the husbands, wives, parents, children, friends, about how they experience it when a loved one falls ill. I wasn't interested in that, even though the family plays a crucial role in Helen as well. I wanted to show what it is like inside of depression. Shed a light on the enigma of a hellish disease and the extent to which it can ruin us. Depression, by nature, is the loss of communication. Film is all about communication. That's a tricky opposition to balance throughout a two-hour drama. Hopefully, I managed to give a glimpse of what it can be like to live in such a skin, give the audience an idea of what it feels like when these walls are closing in on you.

W&H: This is not an easy movie to watch, but it is hopeful and redemptive. What can you say to people who might be put off and not want to make the effort to see a "hard" movie especially in the summer.

SN: That it may be even harder to watch it in the winter! No, seriously, this is a tough movie in any weather. And I'm sure it's not for everyone. But in ten years I have not met one person who was not in some way directly or indirectly affected by this illness. Everyone had a story to tell. Consider the numbers for a moment. In the US alone, almost 20 million people suffer from depression, more than twice as many women as men, and it is the leading cause of disability in the country. And these are just the ones we know about, the ones who got treatment, who managed to face the fact that they need help.

But Helen is also, first and foremost, a love story. It asks the question that I always ask, and that really is the one question that I never get tired of asking - what love can do for us. Helen gives a big answer to that. No matter how hard or dark it gets, I know there is hope and love, and I think the movie compounds that. How crucial it is not to give up hope, under any circum­stance. Not as the one afflicted, nor as the one trying to help. I've met a lot of people who shook my hand after the movie because they either finally felt under­stood or did understand in a way they hadn't done so before. So I do believe this film can make a difference. And as a filmmaker, to me that is the proudest moment.

W&H: How did you get Ashley Judd?

SN: Actually, she got to me. Somebody gave her the script to read and she wrote me a passionate letter about how much it would mean to her to be involved in this film. What she hadn't been told was that, at the time, I already had a lead actress committed to the project. Ashley and I met anyway because I was very moved by her conviction and enthusiasm, her readiness to take on such a challenge. A few months later, fate would have it that my lead actress had to leave the project due to another prior commitment and ill-timing. So I called Ashley and asked her if she would still consider the role. She said yes right away, and lucky for me, she was available. I think it was meant to be. The film was as personal to her as it was to me.

W&H: Ashley Judd goes to depths we have never seen from her before. How were you able to get such a stark and brutally honest performance from her?

SN: Ashley was ready and prepared to give herself to this complex and difficult performance in a way that doesn't happen very often. I think that is the greatest gift to any director - when it is as meaningful and significant to an actor to embody a character, become part of a story, as it was for Ashley to portray Helen. Of course it is also a huge challenge. How much do you push someone on this journey, and how do you protect them. I had to rely on Ashley to draw the line, all I could do is offer her my guidance, my presence, a safe haven any time she needed it - and ask her to trust me as a director. I think she is a brilliant actress, and what she is able and willing to share with us on the screen as Helen is nothing less than extraordinary.

W&H: There are two different forms of mental illness dealt with in the film, depression which Ashley Judd's character suffers from as well as bi-polar disorder which Lauren Lee Smith's character Mathilda suffers from. How were you able to choreograph the scenes between the two actresses who were both dealing with very different emotions that needed to come out onscreen.

SN: As a director I do everything to make the actors feel safe, and if they trust me, they can go to places they haven't been to before. There is also something truly intimate about Lauren Lee Smith's performance, something very private and raw. I don't think you get that if the actors don't believe you'll do right by them or if they're not convinced that you know what you're doing, that you will protect and appreciate what they give you. I think both Ashley and Lauren felt extremely self-confident inside of their roles, and I myself had very precise ideas about each of the characters that I was able to convey to the actors. So nobody got lost. I think it was this clarity that guided us through the scenes. There was never any doubt in my mind about their relationship, how they affect, oppose, care for and love each other for who they are. The very thing that drives the two women together, their ability to accept each other and give each other the space (and company) they need, their unique relationship within the story, their dynamic opposition and alliance is also what makes the scenes work, and ultimately how Ashley and Lauren worked next to each other. And even though they deal with different illnesses, Mathilda knows depression, as it is part of her condition. She knows how Helen feels, and this is their common ground. Helen on the other hand doesn't know mania, she can't follow Mathilda to that place. She doesn't understand the terrifyingly appealing ambivalence of bi-polar disorder that Mathilda feels and lives with, and that is precisely where she loses her.

W&H: Depression and mental illness in general is pervasive yet is still stigmatized. The most fully functioning person could all of a sudden be plunged into such deep depths. What do you want people to learn from this film?

SN: That it can happen to everyone. That it often happens to people you least expect it of. Also, of course, and this is particularly challenging, people have to understand how fine and fluctuating the line is between unhappiness and illness. That people, including and especially the sick ones, often can't tell the difference - sometimes until it's too late. Many people would never get as sick as they do if they would find help sooner. The stigma is everywhere, maybe even particularly in the hearts and minds of the people who are ill. You very often hear severely depressed people wish they had cancer, broken bones, anything other than depression - in other words, a "real" illness. Something one can see, point to, identify, isolate. Depression is invisible, often masked (by alcoholism for example), and it afflicts the mind, so it robs us of the very organ we need to cope with it in the first place. It can be a deadly cycle. When you're inside the illness, you not only lose your grasp of reality, of perspective and hope, you also lose your ability to understand and rationalize your condition. Death becomes attractive because it seems to be the only means to heal the disease.

What I want people to learn above all else is that there is no shame in seeking help and that the best help one can offer as a loved one or friend is to help a depressed person find that help. Nobody expects people with diabetes to "pull themselves together" and try living without the insulin. But there are many people who would still be alive today if they had found the proper professional help at the right time, and this includes medication. You can see, I do think we have a lot to learn and I could go on and on. If I had to sum it up, once again, I'd say, don't be afraid or ashamed to ask for help, don't give up hope, and don't give up the fight.

W&H: You also really try to get to the heart of how mental illness is so misunderstood. When Helen's husband David (played by Goran Visnjic) says to her psychiatrist, Helen is unhappy, the doctor responds - your wife is not unhappy, she is ill. Can you talk about how hard it is for people to understand mental illness?

SN: It's a bitch. Like I said, we can't point to it. Multiple sclerosis doesn't look like a broken heart. Cancer doesn't feel like sadness. Clinical depression however moves within this realm. And we're inclined to solve our own problems, get a handle on things, tough it out, move on, not whine, take control, be a winner etc. Even when depression is at its worst, when your despair is beyond belief, when you can't get out of bed, when you feel nauseated all the time, when you can't sleep, when you loathe yourself inside and out, when nothing makes sense and you don't feel love for anything, when you can't stop crying and all you can think about is how best to end your life - even then, the idea that it is your fault, that you really only need to pull yourself together and you'd get better, can easily manifest itself. And it's not surprising. The lines are almost impossible to draw, and it's hardly ever completely exclusive of one another. At the other end of the spectrum one may draw the line too easily. As if a pill is all you need. I can tell you this: at best pills can help you manage depression, they can help you learn to live with it, they can lift the most paralyzing black blanket and enable you to get back some control, to live your life in a way so you are no longer a victim of your illness. But they're not a cure. They can't make you happy. Happiness is still very much our responsibility and has nothing to do with the disease. Just as it is our responsibility to deal and address conflict that arises, face necessary struggles and respect and accommodate love and relationships. Happiness is no guarantee and can't be medically induced. The ability to live your life fully however is something one can be robbed of by the disease. And all this is just the tip of the iceberg. Depression is long, tedious, hard work, and once you get through the thick of it and are lucky enough to survive it, the real work begins (like it does at the end of the movie). Even under the best of circumstance, when you have people who love and try to understand and accept you for who you are, living with this illness is hard.

W&H: The film premiered over a year ago at Sundance. Why did it take so long for it to come to theatres?

SN: More often than not it is frustrating, demoralizing and sometimes infuriating how little control one has over this aspect of the filmmaking process. Not to say that there has ever been an easy time to release a challenging film, but the last couple of years certainly haven't been favorable for independent drama. I have to say I am very happy that the film will see the light of day at all in the US. I feel that that's where this film really belongs. I surely wish it had gotten a lot more exposure than it has.

W&H: What are you working on next?

SN: I'm adapting a French novella about an American widower in Paris. It's a charming, bittersweet and melancholic comedy. It reminds me in many ways of Mostly Martha and once again revolves around the themes that you can find in each one of the five films I've made so far - who is part of the family, what we do for love and what love can do for us.

Helen opens in NY at the Quad today and will be out on DVD August 10th

[AzizalSaqr]

From: http://www.blackbookmag.com/article/ash ... vism/21134

Ashley Judd on Battling Depression and Her Political Activism
By Ashley SimpsonJuly 30, 2010

Ashley Judd is best known for that string of pulp thrillers that always seemed to costar Morgan Freeman (there were, in fact, only two—Kiss the Girls and High Crimes). And while her career has cooled down commercially, the 42-year-old actress is keeping busy these days as a political activist and survivor of and spokesperson against clinical depression. But Judd still makes films. Her latest is Helen, an independent picture from Sandra Nettlebeck in theaters today. In it, she plays the title role, a pale-faced woman who spirals into severe, numbing depression. It's never easy to watch but compelling throughout. Here is the actress on the challenges of this role, her own struggle with depression, and the importance of activism.

How did you get involved with this film?

I was sent the script by my agent and I was making one of my exceedingly rare trips to California. I read the script on the flight and I kept having to get up to go the bathroom to cry. As soon as I landed and I could turn my phone on, I sent my agent’s office an e-mail and requested to send a copy of the script to two of my mentors, both of whom are exceedingly gifted people as well as very gifted clinicians. I wanted them to read the script because my immediate question was, “Can I play the disease without being in the disease?” Neither of them had ever read a screenplay before, but they got in it in the mail very quickly and read it straight away, and both called me back and said, “Ashley, How dare you not?” I thought, “Well, there’s the green light for me. As far as I’m concerned, I have to do this.” I composed an e-mail that was sent to Sandra Nettlebeck. Then, when I got back to Tennessee I heard from her. I was in my husband’s office and we said, “Oh great! It’s from her!” And, I opened the e-mail and she said, “Why did you read the script? I gave that part to someone years ago!”

So, what happened?

Well, I first stopped and said the serenity prayer because there are things I am powerless over. My first thought was, “I’m being protected. This is something I was supposed to read and not supposed to do. Things happen for a reason and work out for my highest good. Obviously, I’m going to have some feelings of disappointment, but it is what it is.” Then, we just became e-mail friends and visited back and forth. I believe it was in the Spring. That summer, I guess Sandra just got really tired of trying to make the movie with the other actor. The producer Christine Haebler was on her summer holidays sailing in British Colombia and got a phone call that I was interested. We pulled the movie together literally within weeks.

How did you approach the role?

It is such a good script. I approached it as a powerfully written and vividly detailed screenplay with all the information I needed in order to successfully portray the character. I didn’t approach it any differently from any of my other roles.
What do you hope that people will take from this picture? It definitely doesn’t give any easy solutions.
I hope that they’re so interested in the movie that someday Sandra has the opportunity to present her real cut of the film. I am telling you: what is in the film you just watched is literally a fraction of what I did in that film.

So what else would we be looking at?

There was just so much that was cut! It was a powerful script and there were just more periods of depression and more suicide attempts and some really big relationship stuff. There was some arguing where I’m actually really trying to leave him to protect him from me spewing my disease all over him and he refuses to let me leave. There’s a solid three-hour movie!

So, there’s a good hour more.

Oh yeah. I think it’s abusive to talk about a problem without actually talking about a solution. It’s not necessary in this day and age to live isolated in the disease of depression. Mental illness no longer needs to be treated with a sense of secrecy or stigma. There’s a lot effective help that’s available, whether it’s on a short-term basis in a stabilizing ward with appropriate medication prescribed by qualified pharmacologists with really close supervision and then there are different cognitive and behavioral modalities that are increasingly effective. There’s a lot of hope for people with depression.

What other issues are close to your heart now?

Well, I’m getting ready to go back to the Democratic Republic of Congo. Doing something about gender violence is a major priority of mine. I continue to do international public health work on all fronts– maternal health, child survival, family planning, STD and HIV prevention, malaria prevention and treatment, all the work I’ve been doing with Population Services International for the past seven years. I’m still deeply invested in that.

Do you feel it is your responsibility as a person in a certain position of power and visibility to use that?

I don’t pay attention to it. I just do the next good, right thing and try to be of maximum service to the God of my understanding. You know? I don’t do it because I’m an actor. I do it because I’m a human being.

[Trainerjen]

I saw Ashley on The Today Show this morning talking about the release and the film. She mentioned Goran, calling him wonderful to work with, a great actor, great in the role, and very sweet. They also showed a clip with him in it. I'm looking forward to seeing this even more now.

[Trainerjen]

Yet another not-so-stellar review.

From:
http://www.nj.com/entertainment/movies/ ... _good.html

'Helen' movie review: Sadly, this film about depression isn't very good
Published: Saturday, July 31, 2010, 7:54 AM
by Stephen Whitty/The Star-Ledger

One of the thousand depressing things about depression is just how difficult it is to get on the screen.

Other illnesses — manic-depression, schizophrenia or obsessive-compulsive disorder — are easy to dramatize. But drama demands that a protagonist, above all, want something. Most clinically depressed people merely want to be left alone.

And that leaves any drama about them undramatic from the start.

That’s a problem faced by “Helen.” Its title character is a smart, lovely, 40-ish music professor with a stable second marriage and a teen daughter she adores. And then, one day, she simply goes off the rails.

She can’t sleep. She can’t concentrate. She’s prone to panic attacks and sudden flights from public places. Until finally she’s sitting on the floor pressing a knife to her own throat, and her husband is wondering what in hell is going on.

And so are we.

“Helen” provides no explanation, beyond the suggestion that there is none. Helen’s depression is an illness, and wondering why she’s had this breakdown is as useful as wondering why someone with leukemia now has a blood disease. The one thing — the only thing — to concentrate on is how to treat it.

That “Helen” stakes out this approach early is to its credit.

But the film’s truthfulness to its character also makes it pretty tough going as a movie. How many scenes can you watch of a woman lying in bed with her face turned to the wall? How involved in her life can you become, as an audience, when she herself is not involved at all?

That’s a problem director Sandra Nettelbeck — who also made the very different, and delightful, character study, “Mostly Martha,” — never really solves, despite a powerful performance from Ashley Judd.

It doesn’t help that Nettelbeck slows down the movie’s pace to a crawl, or burdens it with such murky photography that even the cinematographer seems to have the blues. Or that she depends so strongly on Lifetime clichés — like the wish-fulfillment figure of Goran Visnjic as Helen’s ever-adoring husband.

A particularly bad choice is the wild-card character of a suicidal lesbian, Mathilda, who seems to suddenly pop up so Helen can question her own sexuality. Mathilda’s appearance feels like a contrived complication; her eventual, dramatic disappearance seems like a throwback to the worst films of the bad old pre-Stonewall era.

Things wrap up neatly at the end — far more neatly than they usually do in real life. Too bad. For the first time in a long time, some talented people have tried to shine some light on a mental illness. And once again, they’ve been undone — not only by the problems inherent in the material, but by their own fondness for fantasy.

Really — it’s depressing.

[AzizalSaqr]

From: http://www.manhattanmoviemag.com/interv ... helen.html

Ashley Judd is Helen
July 30th, 2010 | by Marlow Stern

Whether surrounded by rowdy, chest-painted frat boys at Kentucky Wildcats basketball games or sporting a Kentucky Derby-style hat and nervous grin while watching her husband, Dario Franchitti, whip around the Indianapolis 500 racetrack, actress Ashley Judd seems like the picture of happiness.

Judd, 42, best known as the star of thrillers like “Double Jeopardy” and “Kiss the Girls,” is in a good place in life. In May, she received a Masters Degree in Public Administration from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, her husband recently won the Indy 500 and Judd’s coming off a string of impressive roles in smaller, character-driven films like Joey Lauren Adams’s Sundance drama “Come Early Morning” and William Friedkin’s psychological horror film “Bug” that really show off her range as an actress.

It’s a far cry from 2006. That year, Judd had come off her biggest critical and commercial failure yet, the nonsensical thriller, “Twisted.” What’s worse, she was suffering from a bevy of personal issues and ultimately entered a program at Shades of Hope Treatment Center in Buffalo Gap, Texas, and stayed for 47 days. There, Judd was treated for depression and codependency.

In a stunning example of art-imitating-life, Judd’s latest starring role is in HELEN. Directed by Sandra Nettelbeck (“Mostly Martha”), Judd stars as Helen, a seemingly-happy music professor who, unbeknownst to her husband (Goran Visnjic) and 13-year-old daughter (Alexia Fast), suffers from severe depression. When Helen relapses, her life begins to unravel. She finds solace in one of her young students, Mathilda (Lauren Lee Smith), who is afflicted with the same disease. Similar to her standout Sundance performances in the aforementioned “Come Early Morning” and her breakthrough role in 1993’s “Ruby in Paradise,” HELEN is more than anything a showcase for Judd’s acting talent.

MMM chatted with the incredibly articulate Judd about her own battle with depression, her politics and political aspirations, being typecast in thrillers and, last but not least, Kentucky Wildcats basketball.

MANHATTAN MOVIE MAGAZINE: What attracted you to the character of ‘Helen?’

ASHLEY JUDD: I thought it was a beautiful, powerful screenplay. I think it was about page 12 and I was reading it and thought, “I absolutely have to do this.” I had no idea where this film was going but I had a really deep sense of identification.

MMM: Did you see similarities between Helen’s descent into madness and Agnes’s in “Bug?”

JUDD: Oh, what an interesting question! I love Agnes. I love that movie. On occasion, I’ll be in an airport – or some big public space – and an anonymous member of the throng will point their finger at me with their eyes wide and start to back away. “Oh, you’ve seen ‘Bug’!” [Laughs] I think that Helen is much more conscious about her trajectory than Agnes is because Helen knows where she’s going. She’s been there before, and that’s really common with people who have depression. There can be, oftentimes, a foreboding sense around a certain time of year or around the anniversary of a triggering event, and folks get really scared and think, “Oh crap, am I going to go there again?” There’s a wonderful saying around recovery circles that ‘we’re only as sick as our secrets,’ so, in addition to living with untreated depression, Helen is keeping a toxic secret about being there before. Agnes and she share the isolation.

MMM: But Agnes was pushed into madness by Peter [Michael Shannon.] Did your husband’s character in Helen [Goran Visjnic] have a hand in Helen’s relapsing?

JUDD: No, I don’t think so. I really think Helen was a biochemical baseline mood brain event. I think Goran’s character was the untreated codependent in the relationship, whereas Agnes is the one who’s very codependent in “Bug.”

MMM: The film seems to advocate hospitalization and medication to combat psychiatric illness—

JUDD: —Oh no, not at all. That’s a part of Helen’s journey, but I don’t think in any way, shape or form this film is advocating that. The director, Sandra Nettelbeck, was very clear in filming this one scene when Helen is insisting on being discharged, that the attorney representing her points out that some psychiatric patients succeed in committing suicide while in the hospital. Now, if you want my personal view, they absolutely have a place in treating major recurrent suicidal depression. And, in this day and age, we’re fortunate that there’s a full arsenal of tools that are useful and effective and they all need to be used in a concerted and coordinated effort.

MMM: So you’re not with the Tom Cruise camp on this one?

JUDD: Absolutely not. Absolutely not. I think medication can be crucial for stabilizing baseline mood and only from a stable baseline can the daily pick-and-shovel work of cognitive and behavioral therapy – experiential therapy, of which I am an impassioned proponent – and other modalities, can genuinely stand a chance of staying effective. Chat therapy on it’s own, lets be real clear, does no good. It can in fact be abusive because it regurgitates the problem instead of creating a design for living that helps move the person forward in a dynamic and real way.

MMM: As far as the ending is concerned, with Helen receiving electro-shock therapy, many critics have found it to be a bit “tidy.” What are your thoughts on the ending?

JUDD: Sandra is a German auteur, so “tidy” is not in her vocabulary. [Laughs] I’m not jumping on any electro-shock therapy bandwagon. It was part of Helen’s journey. I don’t know if you’ve ever lived with or known someone battling with major recurrent suicidal depression. It is not a thing to be trifled.

MMM: I understand you had your own battle with depression in 2006. How did your own experience inform the way you approached the role of ‘Helen?’

JUDD: Well, it certainly made me love Helen in a special way, and I think those of us who have been there can understand like few others can. When I started reading the script and, on a pretty deep, intuitive level, understand what it was about, I started to weep. “But for the grace of god go I” was the constant refrain in my mind, because it very easily could have been me if I had not gotten the kind of help I did when I got it. I was on an airplane when I was reading the script and as soon as I landed, I called two of my mentors and said, “I have to send you this screenplay. Do you think I can play the disease without being ‘in’ the disease?” And they said, “How dare you not. You of all people, you can carry the message of recovery because, in a way, you’re uniquely qualified.” I identified a lot with Helen’s story. Some of the major things were different but the essence was the same. This is going to sound perverse, but it was really fun. I got to play the disease without myself being in it. From an artistic point of view, there was something really incredible about that.

MMM: Ever since “Twisted” in 2004, you’ve come a Sundance darling so-to-speak. I know you got your start at Sundance with “Ruby in Paradise,” but you’ve really been acting in a lot of independents and staying away from the thrillers. Why the change?

JUDD: I like you! [Laughs] I burnt out. For some of Helen’s reasons, I was just ready to take a step back and opting out felt really necessary, and it also felt really good. I really enjoyed making “Come Early Morning” with Joey Lauren Adams. And then “Bug” was just a riot. I think I was being really nourished creatively and having my needs met.

MMM: But do you feel like the thrillers weren’t stretching you enough as an actress? Because in these independents you really seem to go for it.

JUDD: I always work hard in the thrillers. I show up and do whatever I have to do on any particular day. I was actually thinking about how, for that period of time, I was associated with those films, but I was also doing “Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood” and “De-Lovely.” Maybe because of [the thrillers’] commercial success, and audience familiarity, I seem a little over-associated with those than what’s really reflective of the totality of my work. “High Crimes” was a really difficult film for me. I was not in a good place, personally. When I look back on it, if I had been a little more empowered at the time, I probably wouldn’t have made “High Crimes.” And then I think it ended up setting up “Twisted” to look like one too many. Working with Philip Kaufman, Sam [Jackson], it was a great group of people, but I was personally in a really bad place. I was really in a pickle. That can’t help but be reflected in what goes out into the world.

MMM: I understand you just received your Masters Degree in Public Administration from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and you’ve done a great deal of advocacy work. Is it your goal to one day run for public office?

JUDD: No, it is not ultimately my goal. I would like to be of maximum service to the god of my understanding, and right now, I’m not sure that’s the best use of me. I was surprised during my time at school that I had, if anything, a deeply affirming recommitment to the power of individual consequence in the world. And work on the grassroots level, right now, is where I belong. But I am very active in Washington D.C. and I enjoy the advocacy that I do. Marsha Blackburn, who represents our [Tennessee’s 7th congressional] district in congress, is coming over. We have absolutely nothing in common except for a chromosome and our residency, but we’re going to be talking about intimate partner violence and we’re going to be putting our heads together to stop male sexual coercion and aggression.

MMM: Just wondering – did you attend any college parties at Harvard?

: That’s a great question, actually. I hosted a few parties and my class had this thing called ‘Dinners for Seven,’ where groups of seven students are randomly put together for a fortnight for a potluck. And one of the last ones I hosted I was the only American. It was the nastiest dinner ever. So gross. One of my Korean cohorts brought spongy cookies with orange stuff and we had Indian food, Greek food—

MMM: —Not sure how all those foods mix together in your stomach.

JUDD: Yeah. Totally. I just brought biscuits and gravy! [Laughs] But, in terms of beer-swilling kinds of parties, no. People do have fun and cut-up and we did karaoke and all that, but it was a pretty earnest bunch who wanted to get down to business and change the world.

MMM: Now let’s segue to sports. I know you’ve been married to Dario Franchitti for almost a decade. Is there anything more nerve-wracking than watching him race?

JUDD: Um… Watching West Virginia’s 3’s go down when ours don’t? Watching the [Kentucky Wildcats] start 0-20 from 3 in the Elite Eight?

MMM: But it must still be pretty difficult for a spouse.

JUDD: I honestly don’t get nervous. It would be a terrible way to live to be caught up in that fear or even excitement. I try to maintain a pretty even keel in life. But I enjoy it, I’m excited for him and I hope he has the opportunity to succeed at the highest levels because he has that kind of talent.

MMM: And speaking of your Kentucky Wildcats superfan status, how do you think the team will do now that they lost so many players to the NBA?

JUDD: I think they’ll do well! There’s a rule in the NCAA that a team can do something prior to the academic years, so Coach Cal is taking the team for a 3-game tour in Canada. Interestingly, that hasn’t been done since the beginning of the ’96 season when Pitino took the team that ultimately won the national title to Italy. We have a lot of incoming freshman, so we could potentially start five freshman – I don’t think we will – but we have the #1 recruiting class in the nation, again, so I think it will be an exciting year.

MMM: How do you think John Wall will do in the NBA?

JUDD: I think he’ll do great. But I’m really interesting in seeing how the others will do as well. I always thought [Eric Bledsoe] was a major star and he was just eclipsed, understandably so, by Wall, but he is phenomenal. And I think DeMarcus Cousins has the opportunity to play at a high level right away. I’m so excited for Patrick Patterson who’s one of the most popular players in UK history and he’s going to be playing with Chuck Hayes [for the Houston Rockets], who’s the other bring-the-work-pail-to-lunch type player who does everything. They’ll have long careers in the NBA.

MMM: I was always waiting for Al Pacino to play Rick Pitino in the Kentucky Wildcats movie.

JUDD: [Laughs]

MMM: Could you talk about your upcoming film “Flypaper” with Patrick Dempsey?

JUDD: It’s Patrick Dempsey, Tim Blake Nelson, Matt Ryan, Jeffrey Tambor – really fun cast, like, “Costumes go to two, Ashley’s wet herself again can we get her double?” I had so much fun on that film. It was a very spontaneous, last-minute thing. I just finished school and turned in all my papers, and Dario had just won the Indianapolis 500, it was filming in Louisiana, which isn’t too terribly far from where we live, and Tim Blake Nelson is really special to me from “Come Early Morning.”

MMM: So it’s a bank heist comedy?

JUDD: Yeah, it’s a bank heist comedy. I play a teller who has this annoying, strange guy with obvious psychiatric issues who comes to my station right as the bank is closing, and just as she’s about to leave she realizes the bank is about to be robbed, and the gag is that the bank is robbed by multiple crews at once and we’re all taken hostage and it plays out over eight or ten hours. And the congresswoman’s here so I need to scoot!

HELEN opens on July 30th in select theaters nationwide.

The only Goran pic in the article...

[Trainerjen]

Hey, a good review!

From here http://movies.nytimes.com/2010/07/30/mo ... helen.html

A Portrait of Depression
By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS
Published: July 29, 2010

Opening with a sobering quotation from Andrew Solomon’s 1998 confession of suicidal depression in The New Yorker, “Helen” dives into this painful mental illness with sensitivity and grace.

As Helen, a successful music professor and contented wife and mother, Ashley Judd is, initially, gleamingly serene. But as the first ripples of sadness swell to a paralyzing crescendo of distress, she never loses her grip on a character that is unrelentingly embattled. Unable to communicate with her appalled husband (Goran Visnjic, tone perfect) and teenage daughter (Alexia Fast), Helen finds comfort only in the company of a self-destructive student (an excellent Lauren Lee Smith) who is struggling with her own psychological demons.

Drawing inspiration from the suicide of a childhood friend, the writer and director, Sandra Nettelbeck, orchestrates a story that somehow avoids punishing the audience as much as its heroine. Demanding patience but not blood, the film keenly conveys the profound isolation of mental illness and the futility of searching for someone, or something, to blame. In roles that could have devolved into arias of melodrama, the cast never overplays its hand, fighting the omnipresent melancholy in small ways rather than large.

Shot (by Michael Bertl) in the damp spaciousness of Vancouver, British Columbia, the film — from leafy exteriors to sterile hospital rooms — has a cool, unsettling beauty. If only depression were always this pretty.

“Helen” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). A knife to the chest and electrodes to the brain.

HELEN

Opens on Friday in Manhattan.

Written and directed by Sandra Nettelbeck; director of photography, Michael Bertl; edited by Barry Egan; music by David Darling, score by Tim Despic; production designer, Linda Del Rosario; costumes by Bettina Helmi; produced by Kirk Shaw, Jens Meurer, Simon Fawcett, Chris Curling, Robbie Little, Larry Sugar, Andrew Spaulding and Doug Mankoff; released by E1 Entertainment. At the Quad Cinema, 34 West 13th Street, Greenwich Village. Running time: 1 hour 59 minutes.

WITH: Ashley Judd (Helen Leonard), Goran Visnjic (David Leonard), Lauren Lee Smith (Mathilda), Alexia Fast (Julie Leonard), Alberta Watson (Dr. Sherman) and Leah Cairns (Susanna).

[AzizalSaqr]

Silly girl,

I posted that one on the 29th...go back a page and look for the big pic of David holding Helen.

[Trainerjen]

Doh! I thought I'd read them all. I saw that one and thought "Hey! A new one! And it's good!" My bad.

Silly me.

[anica]

Caught the last showing of Helen at the Quad last night, I'll toss in my two cents if anyone is interested but honestly, I was pretty disappointed by this film.

[Trainerjen]

Actually, I'd love to hear a review from a Goran fan, or just a "regular" person in general, rather than a film critic. So if you'd like, please go ahead and share!

[Trainerjen]

A new review that's quite positive...well, er, you know what I mean.

From http://www.ottawacitizen.com/entertainm ... story.html

Helen ****

The movie premiered at Sundance and promptly fell off the radar screen, because most viewers found this frank look at suicide and depression a little too bleak. Many others simply found it preposterously farfetched. Yet, anyone who has witnessed suicidal depression first-hand will recognize Helen as one of the only films to address this taboo square on, without shmaltz or the ever-desired happy ending.

Ashley Judd plays a bright, successful, and caring professor who appears to be happily ensconced in the perfect house, marriage and family. When she experiences a mental shift, her handsome hubby (Goran Visnjic) can't handle it. He thinks she should be just fine, and should get over the sadness wracking her spirit. She can't. She is on the downward spiral. Only the company of a fellow sufferer (Lauren Lee Smith) can soothe the ache.

Judd is nothing short of brilliant and brave in the title role, and the supporting cast hits every minor note on the score, ensuring this small movie with a big heart wades into taboo for the right reasons, with memorable results

Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/entertainm ... z0vruzRZRi

[Trainerjen]

http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/44171/helen/

Helen
E1 Entertainment // R // August 10, 2010
List Price: $24.98 [Buy now and save at Amazon]
Review by Jamie S. Rich | posted August 8, 2010

THE MOVIE:

Ashley Judd is Helen, a successful woman who has a good job as a music professor, a second marriage that is working, and a daughter that she loves. Helen is also suffering from depression, and though she has had it under control for years, the illness has slowly been creeping its way back into her life. She starts staying in bed longer in the mornings, she has uncontrollable crying fits, and she's having trouble focusing.

Written and directed by Sandra Nettelbeck (Mostly Martha), Helen doesn't attempt to play coy with mental illness. The script doesn't set us up for a sucker punch by making Helen's life seem idyllic, we're pretty much aware that something is wrong from the get-go. Nettelbeck is taking us into the story just as things start to unravel. Helen is about what is wrong and what happens when that wrongness is acknowledged.

Helen's husband, David (Goran Visnjic, from TV's ER), does his best to stand by his wife, though once her behavior gets dangerous, he persuades her to take some time in a hospital. There, Helen reconnects with one of her students, Mathilda (Lauren Lee Smith, The L Word), a gifted cellist who is suffering from bipolar disorder. Mathilda offers Helen the understanding she needs and the support no one else can give her. They confide in one another, and they start to live together. Only, it's possible the more Helen gets it together--including a second stay in the hospital--the worse it is for Mathilda. The younger woman is using her friend's illness to prop herself up.

Helen is a difficult film to get at. It's photographed beautifully (cinematography is by Michael Bertl, who shot Nettelbeck's other films), the acting is phenomenal (Ashley Judd is excellent and never showy; Lauren Lee Smith is brittle and heartbreaking), and Nettelbeck approaches the subject with an unflinching honesty and is careful to avoid letting her story drift into melodrama. Which may be the problem. Maybe a little melodrama was called for. There is nothing much to cling to in Helen; like the depression it depicts, it offers only sadness. The narrative arc merely tracks the grief receding the way one might watch the tide go further and further from shore. It's amazing to see how deep the wet sand goes when it's no longer covered up, but watching its gradual appearance isn't exactly a riveting way to spend an afternoon.

It's easy to take classic storytelling structures for granted, but they exist for a reason. Likewise, actors are often given big speeches at opportune moments in order to inform audiences of what they are expected to take away from what they've just witnessed. Helen is believable and it has many poignant moments, but now that it's over, I'm stuck wondering what it all means. I have no sense of healing, no comfort from balance being restored, it's merely a fade to black. Ironic, since Helen herself is experiencing a new sunrise.

Helen is, in a way, the worst kind of movie to review. I so desperately want to give everyone involved the praise they deserve, but the film itself is lacking too much for me to be able to say it's really that good. I know that with clinical depression there are no grand reasons for why a person ends up the way they do, but when I'm watching a movie, I hope for something more. Without it, watching Helen is a bit like being depressed. After a while, it feels like it's gone on too long and you start to wonder if you're ever going to come out the other side.

THE DVD

Video:
Helen has an anamorphic transfer clocking in at a wide 2.35:1. The image quality is very good, preserving the starkness of the photography while also having rich color that looks good in both the bright and the dark scenes.

Sound:
The 5.1 surround mix is done very well, with a strong ambient atmosphere that works in all the speakers and puts emphasis on the right elements, including the often lovely musical score.

Subtitles are available in English for the deaf and hearing impaired.

Extras:

There are four interview segments, each with one of the principal actors: Judd, Visnjic, Lee Smith, and Alexia Fast, who plays Ashley Judd's daughter in the movie. They talk about what drew them to Helen and the experience of making the movie. Viewers can choose to play the segments individually or all at once; together, they run just over 42 minutes.

FINAL THOUGHTS:
Rent It. Sandra Nettelbeck's Helen is a smart and acutely felt depiction of depression and the effects it has on one woman and the people around her. It's a well-made film with fantastic performances by Ashley Judd, Goran Visnjic, and Lauren Lee Smith; yet, it's also lacking in narrative depth. It's the type of movie that is put together with all the right intentions, but somewhere along the way, someone forgot to put in a greater thematic meaning. Helen is a movie all about the mind, but it's got very little soul.

[Andrejia]

Has anyone seen this? I don't want to give it away (well, not that I have much info, though) so I won't say much about it.

So...got home last night and I have a thing for turning on the computer and TV even though I'm doing something else completely, only that this time they were showing "Helen" on HBO. I only caught the last 20 or 30 minutes but that movie is sooooo worth watching. Usually, even if I think one of the actors is really good looking, I still don't have any problems with focusing on the plot. But whenever they showed a scene with Helen in the hospital or with that friend of hers - Mathilda - or whoever she was, I just found myself wishing for that scene to end and hoping that the next one will have Goran in it. He is just incredibly good looking there. Maybe because there's no make-up restriction, like I heard there was on E.R., maybe it's just because he's smokin' hot, but I found it very hard to concentrate on the plot. And it was a shame, really because it seems very interesting (and the cinematography was very high and very nice).

There was one scene that got to me, though (a Goran-less scene, that is). I had no idea what was up with Mathilda so I found it cute that she picked up a guy at the pier (I thought that they were showing how Helen's depression influenced her to take more action and try to be happy) only to be blindsided by the next scene. My point? The film is interesting and surprising, if you can focus

[Zone3120]

Andrejia, I totally know what you mean I've only watched it dubbed in German so I couldn't focus on the plot anyway but OMG I forgot to breathe during the scenes he was in! (and he's in quite a lot of scenes in the first 80 mins or so) And yeah, he's even hotter than on ER or in any of his movies (maybe except of The Deep End)
His hair is just the perfect length for me, he's so damn beautiful and manly overall and his acting is so amazing!

[AzizalSaqr]

May I just say now, that I hate you guys? Just kidding, I am so jealous, I want to see this film.


Patiently awaiting her Canadian DVD courtesy of a generous board member...