Boxing Helena

R

1993

1h 47m

Drama

List

17%

36 Reviews

Tomatometer

35%

5,000+ Ratings

Audience Score

A rich surgeon (Julian Sands) operates on the object of his obsession, his grotesquely disfigured aloof neighbor (Sherilyn Fenn).

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Critics Consensus

A disturbing concept marred by graceless execution, Boxing Helena is a psychosexual drama that proves more tedious than provocative.

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RyanBurnsPW

Films like this, in spite of the pedigree of Jennifer Lynch's name, need to be appreciated with an open-mind towards all levels of class art. It smashes together soft-core indulgences, hokey music, and obvious characters emblematic of sexy asshole Bill Paxton and aristocratic doctor Julian Sands with shrewd commentaries on loving relationships and via its uses of slow motion, dream-or-memory passages, and careful, languid dread that eventually sparks into aspirational passion between a captive and her captor. The ending is a whip, but by that moment, all that needed to be said has made its impression.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

08/16/23

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Audience Member

This movie was unbearable. 🙄

Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars

01/18/23

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Audience Member

i looooved it. yes, really. as cool as twin peaks

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

02/11/23

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Audience Member

This film explores the female attempt to gain autonomy as well as man's desire to claim women as objects. I found it to he amazing. If anything, the low ratings prove the thesis of the film: that if a woman tries to express herself, she will be stifled.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

02/24/23

Full Review

Audience Member

I'm surprised it has such poor ratings. As long as you go into it spoiler free, it is a bizarre and uncomfortable (in ways i can appreciate-being comfortable isn't always the goal of art) movie that leads you down the psyche of a man who has everything and yet longs only for that which he can't have yet tries so desperately to find a way to possess. from the extraordinarily cold and unfeeling influences of his mother, to his lack of confidence, despite being wildly successful, you almost develop stockholm syndrome for this sadly pathetic and devoid of love story. Two people who both long for more and yet are deeply denied for very different reasons; both aches leading them on a destructive collision between their lives which leave both altered forever. Besides, this is the movie that made me fall in love with sherilyn fenn and it's worth it just to watch her pace the screen like a supernatural goddess who both possesses you and simultaneously is unpossessable, she is something to behold. Julian sands is equally captivating, if not for the same reasons than because you can't imagine him seeming so weak, fragile and truly despicable after Warlock lol. I saw it in my early adult years and it still holds a part of me captive. Watch if you aren't keen on plain unchallenged movies the likes of always make it to the big screen but always pieces something to be desired. It's different, it didn't try to make you comfortable or look to condescend to you. It's its own kind of horrific beauty and I think if you're a deep thinker or like something not status quo, you may just find yourself "haunted by your love for her", too.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

01/30/23

Full Review

Audience Member

90'ların Temel İçgüdü (Basic Instinct) ile zirve yapan erotik gerilim rüzgârından pay alayım, şöyle saplantılı bir aşk hikayesi anlatayım derken güldüren acemilikte sahnelerin kaynadığı, türün Gecenin Rengi (Color of Night) ile sonunu getiren bir film. Yaşı 40'a gelenler çocukluğundan sansürlü halini hayal meyal hatırlayacaktır. İyi ki Kim Basinger oynamaktan vazgeçmiş. Aman aman.

Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars

01/23/23

Full Review

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Jennifer Chambers Lynch

Director

Julian Sands

Dr. Nick Cavanaugh

Sherilyn Fenn

Helena

Bill Paxton

Ray O'Malley

Kurtwood Smith

Dr. Alan Harrison

Betsy Clark

Anne Garrett

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Jay Boyar

Orlando Sentinel

Both the beauty and her beastly pursuer remain too blankly generic for the implications of the movie's main metaphor to come through vividly.

May 30, 2019

Full Review

Dolores Barclay

Associated Press

'Boxing Helena'' is a bad film - with terrible acting, cliched dialogue, a silly script, pedestrian camera work and inferior direction.

Jun 12, 2018

Full Review

Owen Gleiberman

Entertainment Weekly

Rated: C-

Sep 7, 2011

Full Review

Quentin Crisp

Christopher Street

I am probably prevented by some unwritten law from divulging the end of Boxing Helena. I can only say that, instead of adding an extra twist to this bizarre tale, it deprives it of what little point it had.

Apr 6, 2022

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Vanessa Letts

The Spectator

Instead of the grotesque sexual humiliation of Kim Basinger we were all hoping for, we get schoolgirl surrealism.

Jul 25, 2018

Full Review

Owen McNally

Hartford Courant

Take one peak into the shoddy, tasteless Boxing Helena, and you'll realize why Madonna and Kim Basinger bailed out of the title role.

Apr 18, 2018

Full Review

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Synopsis

A rich surgeon (Julian Sands) operates on the object of his obsession, his grotesquely disfigured aloof neighbor (Sherilyn Fenn).

Director: Jennifer Chambers Lynch
Rating: R
Genre: Drama
Original Language: English
Box Office (Gross USA): $1.2M
Runtime: 1h 47m
Sound Mix: Stereo, Surround