directed by:
John Alen written by: John Alen genre: Drama |
There’s a genuine art to making extremely short films, and you can see that Writer/Director John Alen has a natural gift in that regard. “Helpline” is merely three minutes in length, but manages to produce a modest handful of twists & turns as the story unfolds. Time is of the essence when crafting a short film; give Alen his due credit for quickly establishing an engaging film you’ll want to check out for yourself.
For me personally, I suppose I feel like it’s fair to say that both the writing and the direction are solid, though I’d probably be the one to argue that John’s talent in writing might exceed his skills as a director. No real harm in identifying a main strength when both aspects are strong to begin with, right? There’s a good thing, and more of a good thing, in the same thing? C’mon, you know you wanna sign up for that! My point is that while there are no real holes in Alen’s skill set, I appreciated the writing most. Like I said at the start, short films are an art form unto themselves. There are so many things that need to happen, and they need to happen quickly, or everything runs out of time, and nothing comes out of it in a substantial or memorable way. When you’re watching “Helpline,” you get the opposite effect because John’s had remarkable focus in the writing, so each piece of this film, from character to dialogue, serves a purpose. That’s an essential ingredient that even some of the best directors and writers can easily overlook when they’re knee-deep in creating their material, purpose and intention. These are key elements to making a great movie or film, and it’s one of the most noteworthy aspects of what & how Alen creates. You can see through the way this plotline weaves that to watch a film like “Helpline” is to see something that continually builds upon itself like a small ripple into a tsunami, including its eventual break. All in the span of a short three minutes! I’m tellin’ ya, it’s an impressive part of the art, and after watching “Helpline,” I came out feeling like John really had a firm grasp on how to go about doing it right. There’s no wasted space in this film, and I think that really speaks to how Alen understood the task and was able to connect what he’d written through the visuals and how he chose to present this story. It’s tougher to talk about a three-minute film without giving away what might likely be some pivotal spoilers in the plotline, but I’ll do my best to keep it to a minimum. As the title would likely imply to many of you, you’re about to watch a film that takes place in a crisis call center. You’ll meet Henry (played by Alex Carrasco) at first, who is just coming in for a shift as a crisis operator…I think that’s what they’re called…but you know what I mean - the voice you hear on the other side of the line when you really need some help. From what we gather as we meet him, he wants to go on to be a therapist, and taking on something like being a crisis operator is highly recommended as part of the training, if not a full-on, necessary step to getting the degree. I thought it was interesting that Henry asked his trainer, “What if I can’t connect?” and I seriously chewed on this back & forth in my mind the moment that he said it. My initial reaction was, “Boy, are you in the wrong job.” And I kinda stewed on it for a second, because that’s kind of an essential ingredient for a character that would want to become a therapist one day, right? I know we all have to learn things in the jobs we want to do, but this seemed like the craziest concept to me, because who would go into that line of work without knowing they were able to connect with people? Then I started to think about it on a different level, like maybe this is how these educational programs might weed out who is and who isn’t built for this kind of job, even if it was immediately made clear that Henry’s got his eye on being a therapist, that’s very much in the same realm of work that a crisis operator would be in, in terms of what they go through and they deal with. So I came to this conclusion that what you see in that him saying that line “what if I can’t connect,” felt more like a humble moment of quiet panic, like when you can’t escape second-guessing everything, and I changed my opinion entirely. It felt like everybody who would take that job should have a duty to ask that question before they even pick up their first call, even if they have the natural ability to connect. Henry’s first call comes in just before the first minute of “Helpline,” and introduces us to Mia (played by Jade Stewart), under the guise of someone ordering a pizza & pretending they might have called the wrong number. If you’ve dealt with depressive personalities before, you know that using humour can often mask something much darker in certain circumstances, and you quickly find out that Mia is much more interested in slashing veins than slicing pies. As Henry explains, she might have the wrong number, and it’s a suicide prevention line that Mia has called, we see that he’s not just in deep from the get-go, he’s in way, way over his head. So we tense up as we watch, because the severity of the situation hits you hard - Mia’s life is essentially in the hands of a trainee getting their work experience hours in. Do you think that’s what you’d be looking for if you were ever in need of help? Probably not, I’m guessing. Still, absolutely everyone in every job that has ever existed needs to start somewhere. As much as we might have to concede that at some inopportune moments, it’s still kind of scary to think about on a personal level. You call looking for experienced help for the most extreme circumstances, and it’s hard to imagine that there could truly be any substitute for that, but you need experience to get experience.
I thought Jade did an exceptional job as Mia; she tapped right into a clever blend of sarcasm & attitude that made all the curveballs she throws at Henry extraordinarily tough for him to keep up with. It’s clear that Jade is smart, though, and I think that’s a crucial element of her character & why Mia comes across as real as she does - we lose a tremendously large amount of brilliant people to suicide because it can be genuinely overwhelming to be intelligent, or to be someone that feels life on a whole different level. Jade brings that representation to her character as Mia, and while she tries to mask herself in a shroud of expressionless personality, she can’t help but reveal how she’s really feeling to us through the tone of voice. It’s direct…it’s challenging…it’s hurt…it’s seething…and that voice needs the kind of help that Henry might very well not be able to supply. We go through the journey from his side of the call as well, and you can see how he’s relying on his training, painfully & robotically working his way through a series of comments & questions that are frankly, almost devoid of the humanity and sincerity you need to find on the other end of a phone call like that. And so naturally, we continue down the spiral with Mia as we ride along with Henry failing right in front of our eyes. I think we’d all wonder if he’s capable of pulling her out of this moment she’s stuck in as we watch “Helpline,” which is one of the coolest things about it. We’re all thinking about whether or not he’ll be able to help her in time when Mia threatens to put a razor blade to her wrists in a mere five seconds, because that’s a short amount of time for things to go wrong in a hurry. He’s every bit as disconnected as he was worrying about being at the very start of this film! Without giving too much away, I will say that I personally thought “Helpline” found the kind of conclusion it was going for, and pulled it off commendably well. There’s a hopefulness to its final twists, and a real message to be found in the heart of Alen’s work that does connect, and I appreciated what we’d all conclude is the true moral to this story by the time it’s all said and done. Ultimately, it’s that purpose & intention we talked about at the very start of this review that leads John and his crew to victory here, because his film says something authentically important. Well done. Four stars out of five. |
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