Boxing Helena (1993) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)

Alternate Recipe: David Lynch meets Zalman King.

I have seen the film referred to as a comedy, but lord knows why. Maybe Aristotle wrote the review. Irrespective of whether it qualifies under some literary definition, it isn't funny, so you'd really be disappointed if you watch it for the chuckles. One exception. Bill Paxton, as Helena's sometime boyfriend, is funny. I hope that he meant to be, because if not this is one of the worst performances in the history of film. He throws a psychotic, hyper-emotive tantrum near the end of the film in which he sounds like a cub scout who can't find his mommy ("Look what you did to her. She was beautiful"), which forms the perfect climax to a one-dimensional cartoon scumbag performance that would have embarrassed Larry Storch. Poor Paxton. I don't even want to talk about it. Lord knows he has moved on fairly well, and must want to forget this movie. He even put his willie on display in this one.

Which leads me to the real dramatic flaw in this film. Oh, the ending is hokey, I grant you, and the armless statue symbolism was repeated about a half dozen times, so that bit the big one. And the various subplots, with the groveling surgeon buddy and Sand's childhood, were certainly dispensable. But you could overlook all that if you could somehow connect to the characters. The real problem is that there is nothing and nobody to like in the movie. Not one character, not even a little bit. Sands is a completely obsessed sniveling wimp. You'd think you could muster some sympathy for Fenn's situation, but she is the is the Shrew of Shrews, and audiences were hooting to the screen that Sands made a big mistake by not cutting off her head instead of her arms. You don't want Sands to triumph, because he's a weasel and he's just mutilated a human being. But you don't want Fenn to escape, because she's Queen Self-Absorbed Bitch. And you don't want Paxton to do anything except get off the screen.

Who was to blame for the unsympathetic characters? Some critics found fault with the stars, but I don't think Fenn and Sands are really at fault, because they did a reasonably good job with the cards they were dealt. They didn't write the dialogue. I think you have to place the blame squarely on the shoulders of the writer/director, who turns out to be David Lynch's daughter, Jennifer Chambers Lynch. (Ms. Lynch wrote this movie was she was 19 years old.) I think Hollywood pretty much agrees with that assessment since, as of 2007, Ms Lynch has never again worked as director or writer. 

In some ways, that's a shame, because Lynch may not have been a polished director, but she proved that she could give the film a glossy high-budget look, incorporating beautiful art direction and set decoration. But some of the mistakes in the filming are so sloppy and confusing that you can't imagine what was going through her head. In the accident, Helena is standing when she is struck by a vehicle, which is then shown running over her legs. Say what? Did he throw her several feet forward, then keep going and run her over in the spot where she landed? Or maybe he backed up, came back and ran over her legs later, like the next day or something. Heaven knows.

OK, spare me the lecture. I know that everything from the time the vehicle struck her was only in Sands' dream. We see at the end that her legs are perfectly OK, and were probably not run over at all. Even all of the incredible events that transpire and the participants' illogical reactions to those events can be explained by the fact that everything took place in a dream, so is exempt from real-world logic. I'll buy that, but the dream explanation is a two-edged sword. If it answers some questions, it raises almost as many new ones. If it's all Sands' dream, how could Paxton be in it? Sands doesn't even know the guy. If it's Sands' dream, why is Sands such a worm? Are you a pusillanimous, whining wussy in your dreams? See what I mean?

By the way, just in passing, Art Garfunkel grew up to be Larry from the Three Stooges. Except taller.

I guess the film is probably best remembered for almost destroying Kim Basinger's life. Madonna was originally looking at the role, then backed out. Kim was next in line, and apparently Basinger made a firm commitment, then backed out at the 11th hour. The film company sued her for breach of contract, seeking to recapture real damages from schedules that couldn't be met and workers that had to be paid, and lost revenues from losing her star power, and blah blah. Basinger may have been artistically correct to drop out of this turkey, but the legal issues were separate from that. The jury awarded the plaintiffs $8.1 million dollars. The verdict was set aside on appeal, but Kim was out whatever she had to pay her lawyers and P.R. people to handle the case and contain damages. The whole incident drove her to the brink of bankruptcy. It pretty much destroyed her career as well. While everyone in Hollywood knew that the movie stunk, she did give her word to be in it, and one cannot make movies with people who don't show up when they say they will. Of course, Kim had never been a beloved figure to begin with, so there wasn't a mood of forgiveness for many years.

Plus, people figured Kim kinda got what she deserved. How could anybody be dumb enough to agree to appear in a film when (1) she had never read the script, and (2) it was well known that Madonna turned it down.

Think of the movies that Madonna didn't turn down.

Then imagine one far worse.

Boggles the mind, doesn't it?

Kim should have known better, but she didn't, so she had to endure banishment and legal headaches to get away from the film, leaving Sherilyn Fenn to take the heat from the critics. From 1995-1999, she got exactly one role, a relatively small one in L.A. Confidential.  By the time she was forgiven, she was 46, too old to play the sorts of roles she became famous for, so she never returned to the A-list status of her glory years.