(Noch alles dran!)

Vorwort: Für diesen Beitrag entschuldige ich mich schon im Vorfeld bei Herrn Schroeder wegen der appen Arme und bei allen anderen für die Länge. This is actually the abridged version. The original was even longer….

In 1993 movie actress Kim Basinger had, some would say, a streak of bad luck. Sued by director Jennifer Lynch, daughter of director David Lynch, Basinger lost 9 Million Dollar in a law suit. The actress had to file banktrupcy and lost the village Braselton that she had aquired some years previously. Some would say the loss of your own village would be something worth considering when you face featuring in a movie like Boxing Helena.
Blonde voluptuous Basinger had agreed to star in the movie but changed her mind and eventually got sued to pay the large fine.
“What does “Boxing Helena“ mean“, you might care to know. The words have to be taken literally. It means putting a female named Helena in a box. In order to make her fit, her arms and legs get amputated. The fearless actress who took the part Basinger had turned down turned out to be Sherilyn Fenn, of Twin Peaks-fame. Sherilyn Fenn measures 155 cm. So, if you cut off her legs and assume that her torso is of average seize, we are talking
about a very small box, indeed.

Let us see what film critic Bret Fetzer had to say about “Boxing Helena“:

„Boxing Helena wants to be a penetrating investigation into the dark side of erotic desire. It doesn’t succeed. But it does achieve the dubious but delightful status of being an entertaining disaster. Glory in Sherilyn Fenn’s amazingly sincere attempt to take the script seriously! Thrill to the completely gratuitous sex scene between Julian Sands and a woman who doesn’t appear at any other moment in the movie! Gaze, jaw agape, at the ridiculous ending! The movie features a wonderfully overwrought performance from Bill Paxton and what is to date the last film appearance of Art Garfunkel of Simon and Garfunkel fame. While Boxing Helena doesn’t have the relentless ridiculousness of something like The Lonely Lady (with Pia Zadora!) or Showgirl, it has a giddiness that builds as it gets more and more improbable. Bad-movie fans will find it a delectable treat.“

Bret Fetzer, thank you. Others have paid more respect for Boxing Helena. Movie fan Trixy Borden writes on ImdB:

„Julian Sands plays Nick, an obsessed doctor who tries to regain the love of one of his former girlfriends he never satisfied in the past. Helena is the charm of his affection but wants nothing more to do with him. After teasing him at a party one night she realises that she forgot her purse and after going back for it gets hit by a truck on the road. Instead of calling an ambulance Nick treats her himself. By amputating her legs. She thinks even worse of him at this time and he then ends up having to remove her arms as well.
Boxing Helena is a tense fantasy thriller and if you enjoyed this I reccomend Misery, where Kathy Bates whacks and wrecks James Caans legs with a baseball bat and wins an Oscar for it. You can tell in the movie that Nick is obviously not with it and only removed her legs and arms to keep her there with him.There are some scenes that you might find offending and disgusting, but above all this its enjoyable.“

Others have provided intelligent insights about the possible meaning of the movie; Alexandra Lange from Tucson, Arizona writes:

„I believe that in the end, when he wakes up and it all was just a really really bad dream, Nick realises his folly and hopefully becomes a better person. At least the movie tries to tell US that story: that you cannot just
go ahead and cripple a person and then expect to have a loving, full relationship with them. The OUTWARD crippling of Fenn is symbolic of all the sorts of crippling that some people subject their „loved ones“ to in real
life. I believe it strongly: Sands simply CANNOT have real love for the woman in this story. You just DO NOT cut off arms and legs of loved ones. Ever! He is simply too juvenile and acting out his childish fantasies, and
unless he mends his ways and becomes a real man, he will never succeed in either attaining real love OR the woman he desires. Never ever.“

Karl Madsen from Los Angeles comments:

„The entire film is filled to the brim with bad, bad dialogue, which only makes you want to laugh more. At some point, Nick tricks Helena into going to his huge mansion, and she ends up running into the road, where upon a
truck hits her. Is she dead? Sadly, for the audience, no.“

His friend Anita DeLago adds:

„When Sherilyn Fenn gets her legs run over by the car….the way the scene played out made me and my roomates burst into laughter.“

A nameless citizen of Naples, Florida maybe sums it up best:

„Kim Basinger had to pay $9 million to get out of this train wreck of a movie; it was the best money she ever spent. Sherilyn Fenn was not so lucky and reassumed a carreer playing pretty women (legs, arms and all) in shitty movies.“

(Mit alles ab.)