Trailer
Plot summary
Nick Cavanaugh, an Atlanta surgeon, moves into the lavish home of his late mother, Marion, with his girlfriend Anne Garrett. He is still obsessed with Helena, a neighbor with whom he once had an intimate encounter and who holds him in disdain. Unable to accept a life without her, he tries to persuade her that they belong together. At a housewarming party he hosts, Helena leaves early with his friend Russell, and Anne, seeing where his attention lies, walks out. Helena forgets her address book at the house and reluctantly agrees to return for it the next day. As she leaves on foot, a hit-and-run driver strikes her, breaking her leg badly.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Boxing Helena (1993)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- After Kim Basinger quit Boxing Helena, legal battles followed: she was hit with an adverse jury verdict of over $8.1 million that bankrupted her. The verdict was set aside on appeal in 1994, but Basinger later settled for $3.8 million.
- Madonna was slated to play Helena but dropped out shortly before filming was to begin in January 1991, halting the production; Kim Basinger then agreed to take the role but asked for what The New York Times called "major script revisions", producer Carl Mazzocone said she wanted Helena made "less of a bitch."
- Writer-director Jennifer Lynch said the story grew out of her own childhood: she was born with club feet and her grandmother owned a Venus de Milo replica, and what struck her about the statue was that people saw it as beautiful rather than broken.
- The score for the scene where Helena showers in a fountain while a party crowd watches was originally by Graeme Revell, with vocals by Bobbi Page, but at the producers' request "The Fountain Song", written and performed by Wendy Levy, replaced it on the DVD and later releases.
- By the time Sherilyn Fenn was cast as Helena in December 1991, a third major star, Ed Harris, had also backed out of the film because of the ever-increasing delays, telling The New York Times, "I needed to get on with my life."
- Corey Taylor, leader of the metal band Slipknot, has said the band's 1999 song "Purity", from their self-titled album, was inspired by Boxing Helena as well as by The Collector.
