Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Simply A Masterpiece

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

I enjoyed this movie, but found it frustrating to watch because of its frequent lack of realism. The psychological themes in the movie were fascinating to see played out even though the script was apparently written in a somewhat ham-handed manner. I'm tempted to watch the movie a second time to pick up on what I may have missed in the first viewing.

This one-of-a-kind movie is hated by many but certainly deserves some kind of kudos for its uniqueness. I found myself being drawn into this movie; from the initial moments, where I didn't think much of it; to the growing love between Sands and Fenn, to the violent, unexpected conclusion. Jennifer Lynch tries to inject as much of her father's surrealism as possible into the film, so there's lots of symbolism and weird stuff going on. Calling this film "quirky" is an understatement.I remember this as being pretty controversial when it was first released, concerning as it does a man who kidnaps a woman, cuts off her arms and legs and puts her in a box. It's not in bad taste as you might think, although this supposed depravity certainly seems to be one of the film's main selling points (just check the video box for an example). What surprised me most about this film was the subtle message that real love isn't just about sex, but about what the person looks like on the inside instead of the out. There are certainly a number of surprises and twists as the film commences.As I mentioned before, the acting is pretty bad but bearable. The best of the bunch is Sherilyn Fenn, who turns her ice-cold bitch into a realistic, if unlikeable, character. Julian Sands (WARLOCK) overdoes it a bit with his turn as a childish, confused doctor, but to be fair it was a difficult role to play and I can't think of many modern actors capable of pulling the role off totally successfully. Elsewhere, Bill Paxton (with a ludicrous wig) is a cliché and one of my favourite bit actors, Kurtwood Smith, appears as a fellow doctor. But these characters are all unimportant, as the film focuses primarily on Fenn and Sands, and how their relationship progresses as time goes on.This is quite a slow-moving tale, well shot, and there's little in the way of action or gore as you might expect. The actual scenes of amputation are thankfully offscreen. The one thing I didn't really like about the film was the cheat ending, where the entire sequence of events turns out to have...well, couldn't they think of anything else? BOXING HELENA is a real oddity, and certainly worth a look in my opinion, despite the obvious shortcomings.

A surgeon (Julian Sands) becomes obsessed with the seductive woman (Sherilyn Fenn) he once was in an affair with. Refusing to accept that she has moved on, he amputates her limbs and holds her captive in his mansion.After receiving an NC-17 rating by the MPAA, the film was given an R-rating on appeal and released in the United States in September 1993, but received critical backlash and was a financial failure. Gene Siskel was one of the film's few defenders, writing, "I went to the theater to see it expecting the worst," and he called it, "a brave little movie that explored the provocative issue of how some frustrated men channel their inability to love a woman into cruelty." Genre fans might like it, because of the familiar faces -- Sands, Fenn and Bill Paxton. It does suffer from having no one really likable in the plot, and a few twists that may not sit well with some people.

Dr. Nick Cavanaugh (Julian Sands) was raised to be a surgeon. He's a top surgeon and a bit peculiar. His mother dies and he decides to move back into the family mansion. He is still obsessed with Helena (Sherilyn Fenn) whom he slept with once a long time ago and she knows it. She's a wild party girl going out with douche Ray O'Malley (Bill Paxton). Nick's girlfriend Anne Garrett sees the obsession and has a fight with him. He tricks Helena to his home and she runs off into the street. Her legs are crushed in a hit-and-run. He performs amputations and keeps her in his home. Dr. Alan Harrison (Kurtwood Smith) comes looking and Nick gives him the chief of surgery position. After more near-misses and constant resistance from Helena, Nick amputates her arms.Jennifer Chambers Lynch shows that her directing skill is at a TV movie level. With the ending, she shows that she doesn't have the guts to push all the way. It's all a dream and it's a cop out. Julian Sands is good at being a creep and in this one, he's a pathetic creep. Sherilyn Fenn is a beauty. The movie should look and feel much darker. Instead it feel cheesy and a bit campy.