Best movie of this year hands down!

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

German screenwriter and director Sandra Nettelbeck's third feature film which she wrote, is inspired by an article in the New Yorker magazine called "The Anatomy Of Melancholia" from 1998 by American writer Andrew Solomon. It premiered at the 25th Sundance Film Festival in 2009, was shot on location in Canada and is a Canada-USA-UK-Germany co-production which was produced by producers Christine Haebler and Judy Tossell. It tells the story about a professor named Helen Leonard who's life with her husband David and daughter Julie alters after she has a seizure. Helen is somewhat improved after meeting a doctor and befriending a woman named Mathilda who has been struggling with manic depression for several years, but as her kinship with Mathilda grows she becomes estranged from her family.Finely and engagingly directed by German filmmaker Sandra Nettelbeck, this quietly paced fictional tale which is narrated from multiple viewpoints though mostly from the protagonist's point of view, draws a humane and heartrending portrayal of a successful woman who becomes unrecognizable to her family after falling into a severe depression. While notable for it's naturalistic milieu depictions and fine production design by production designer Linda Del Rosario, this dialog-driven and tangible story depicts a mindful study of character and contains a great score by composer Tim Despic.This unsentimental psychological drama about mental illness and how it affects a 40-year-old woman's life, her personality and her family, is set in Canada and is impelled and reinforced by it's cogent narrative structure, substantial character development, compassionate characters and the fine acting performances by American actress Ashley Judd, Canadian actress Lauren Lee Smith, Croatian actor Goran Visnjic and Canadian actress Alexia Fast. An involving, empathic and significant love-story which carefully examines it's central theme and overcomes becoming overly melancholic.

At first I didn't like this movie a whole lot. As other reviewers have already pointed out, it's merciless in its stereotypical portrayal of people: every character in the movie is a royal jerk except for the 2 depressed people, and it gives the impression that all doctors are cold-hearted sadists, all spouses are selfish psychos, and people in general are totally apathetic.But hold on...Then it suddenly dawned on me, duh, that's exactly how one views the world when one is in the throes of depression. I believe it wasn't the filmmakers' intent to make an objective film. I think they were out to show us a somewhat skewed perspective through the eyes of a depressed person. At that, it's very successful.So yes, this is a depressing movie. It's dark. It's irritating. It makes you feel like the world is a sucky place. But if, for some bizarre reason, you want to know what it's like to be depressed, then this is the movie for you.I can't say that I "enjoyed" it (I'm no masochist!) but I can say that it's very well made, with excellent acting, effective cinematography (good use of focus & blurring), and a fitting musical score. Just as "Peewee's Big Adventure" takes us into the mind of a manically happy person with its cartoon colours and bouncy pace, "Helen" shows us the opposite side of the coin with its darkness, bleached visuals and monotonous presentation. If you want to know what it's like to be bipolar, I suppose you could watch the 2 movies back to back.Movies like this: "House of Sand and Fog" (or as I like to call it, "House of Sand and Why Don't We Just Slit Our Wrists and Save Ourselves the DVD Rental Fee") and "Leaving Las Vegas". All of these are excellent films. But wow, hide the sharp metal objects before viewing.

A painful movie about a woman struggling with severe clinical depression.Ashley Judd has a knack for giving powerhouse performances in movies no one's ever heard of (did you ever see her in "Bug?"), and she disappears utterly into the character of "Helen," who herself descends into hell when her illness makes an appearance after lying dormant for many years. Let me be clear -- this movie is one long sustained note of agony, and it is not pleasant to sit through. But it's fascinating in its own way, and the thought of it haunted me for days after I'd seen it.The filmmaker clearly had a very personal and painful relationship with her subject (she lost her childhood friend to clinical depression), and one might think this would make her incapable of retaining the objectivity needed to prevent a film like this from turning into melodrama, but one would be wrong for thinking that.Grade: A-

Ashley Judd's performance is so good, natural and real that make this awful movie almost a masterpiece by herself.On the other hand, the story is awful, full of clichés. For example, there are not even a single good man in this movie, in order of appearance:A narrow-minded husband.A rough doctor.An inpatient student.A quitter ex-husband.And even a rapist!Through out the whole story only a woman can understand a woman, and only women can be kind and supportive.This makes the movie more like a stereotypical, sexist propaganda against man, depicting the depressive Helen more as a victim than as a sick person who refuses to fight against a mental illness.In a world full of food additives causing depression, electroshock as the only option of treatment sounds like one more cliché.I really liked the slow paced and dark mood, though.