Boxing Helena

Nick Cavanaugh, an Atlanta surgeon, begins moving into his recently deceased mother's lavish home with his girlfriend, Anne. However, he remains fixated on his neighbor Helena—a beautiful but shrewish woman with whom he had one intimate experience—although she harbors disdain for him. Nick and Anne host a housewarming party and Nick invites Helena, who leaves early with Nick's friend Russell much to his dismay. Anne leaves Nick after realizing his obsession with Helena. Helena leaves her address book at Nick's house and reluctantly agrees to return the next day to retrieve it. After Helena suffers a high-grade tibial fracture in a hit-and-run accident as she attempts to leave Nick's house on foot, Nick kidnaps her and covertly provides her with illicit medical care in the confines of his home. He goes to the extreme of amputating both her legs. Later, following her attempt to choke him, Nick goes even further by amputating her arms above the elbow as a means of keeping her under his control. Despite Helena being the victim of Nick's kidnapping and mutilation, she dominates the dialogue with constant ridicule of his shortcomings and continues rejecting his affections despite being dependent on him for care. She begrudgingly becomes calmer and more accepting of Nick until the unexpected arrival of her boyfriend Ray, who has been searching for the missing Helena, which escalates into a violent altercation that ends with Ray threatening to shoot Nick with a pistol. Although Ray leaves after pleas from Helena, Nick is crushed by a falling Venus statue. However, it is ultimately revealed that Nick's kidnapping of Helena is a vivid napping dream that Nick is having while waiting at the hospital for Helena to recover from emergency surgery. In reality, he had called the ambulance and sought proper medical help for her after the accident. Later at home in bed with Anne, Nick wakes from a nightmare, still haunted by his love for Helena. ==Cast==

• Sherilyn Fenn as Helena • Julian Sands as Nick Cavanaugh • Bill Paxton as Ray O'Malley • Kurtwood Smith as Alan Palmer • Art Garfunkel as Lawrence Augustine • Betsy Clark as Anne Garrett • Nicolette Scorsese as Fantasy Lover/Nurse • Meg Register as Marion Cavanaugh • Bryan Smith as Russell • Marla Levine as Patricia • Kim Lentz as Nurse Diane • Lloyd T. Williams as Sam the Clerk ==Production==

Producer Philippe Caland came up with the idea, but wanted a woman to write it, and so approached Lynch after she gave a poetry reading. At first, Lynch declined to get involved, reportedly telling him "Well, that sounds kind of terrible." The next month, in an attempt to salvage the film, Lynch met with Kim Basinger about playing Helena. Basinger agreed, but closer to the new filming date she began requesting what The New York Times called "major script revisions", which according to producer Mazzocone amounted to making Helena "less of a bitch". After the production failed to make the changes to Basinger's satisfaction she also quit the picture. Eventually Basinger was the subject of an adverse jury verdict for over $8.1 million, which bankrupted her. The verdict was set aside on appeal in 1994, but Basinger later settled for $3.8 million. Meanwhile, Fenn, who had previously worked with Lynch's father on Twin Peaks, was cast as Helena in December 1991. By this time a third major star, Ed Harris, had also backed out of the film due to the ever-increasing delays, telling The New York Times, "I needed to get on with my life." Music The score heard during the scene where Helena showers in a fountain while a party crowd watches was originally composed by Graeme Revell and based on the "Love Theme" used sparsely elsewhere in the film, with vocals by Bobbi Page. At the producers' request, "The Fountain Song", written and performed by Wendy Levy, replaced Revell's score in the DVD and subsequent releases. ==Release==

Boxing Helena premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 1993 and was theatrically released by Orion Classics in the United States on September 3, 1993, Entertainment Film Distributors in the United Kingdom on June 18, 1993, and Republic Pictures in other international territories. Box office The film performed poorly at the box office, grossing $1,796,389 in the domestic box office. ==Reception==

The film received largely negative reviews from critics upon release and was widely considered to be of poor quality, despite garnering praise at Sundance. However, at least two major film critics thought the film had been unjustly maligned. Chicago Tribune critic Gene Siskel was one of the few positive notices, giving the film three out of four stars. Also positive was Janet Maslin, who wrote in the New York Times that "As it turns out, Ms. Lynch has both talent and a point. Her film is by no means the gory, exploitative quasi-pornography that it sounds like from afar." Nominations and awards The film was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 1993 Sundance Film Festival. ==See also==