Helen (2019 film)

Helen is a B.Sc Nursing graduate and attends IELTS coaching classes intended for a job abroad. She works part-time at a restaurant named The Chicken Hub, inside a plush mall. She lives with her father, Paul, an insurance agent. He does not like her going abroad. Paul is a conservative Christian and has disagreement with Helen associating with non-Christian friends. Unbeknownst to Paul, Helen has a Muslim boyfriend, Azhar, who is in search of a job.

One night, while Azhar is riding Helen to her home, they are stopped by police who penalise him for not wearing a helmet and drunken driving, they both are brought to the police station. Paul is summoned to the station. Paul is in dismay of seeing his daughter and does not talk to her despite her several attempts of creating conversation.

The next night after work at the Chicken Hub, Helen's manager Jayashankar unknowingly locks her in the freezer room. At -18 °C, Helen has to survive in the freezing cold and tries everything to keep herself alive. She tries to block the exhaust fan but ended up dislocating her leg. She starts to get frostbite and bleeding through her nose.

Her father starts getting worried that Helen has not reached home. He searches for Helen with the help of his neighbor. They call all her co-workers but they all said they do not know anything. Azhar, who was on his way to Chennai half-heartedly, returns and also joins the investigation.

They go to the police station to file a complaint but they are greeted by the SI Ratheesh Kumar, whom they met yesterday. He suspects Azhar. Paul tries to defend him and this causes a feud between the sub-inspector and the search party. He deliberately tries not to help them by not sharing the last tower location of Helen he got from Cyber cell.

They get a clue that Helen might have had a problem with the auto drivers in front of the mall. They all reach there to enquire. The auto driver whom they suspected denied the allegation. At this point, they meet a watchman of the mall who says that Helen might not have left the mall because he usually notices her going in and out.

They rush to the Chicken Hub and opens the freezer. In the end, after 5 hours, they find Helen. She is taken to the hospital just before she had the last stage of hypothermia. Then Paul enquires with the watchman that how was he sure about the fact that Helen didn't leave the mall. Helen smiles at him every time she comes in and out of the mall. He did not see her go out on the day of her missing.

Helen reunites with her father and boyfriend. The doctor says that she is out of danger and she needs physiotherapy later. He continues that its difficult for any common man or woman to survive that cold weather and Helen is a brave girl. When the watchman asks Paul what his daughter's name is, Paul proudly replies, "Helen".

• Anna Ben as the girl
• Lal as Paul, Helen's father
• Noble Babu Thomas as Azhar
• Aju Varghese as SI Ratheesh Kumar
• Rony David as Jayashankar
• Binu Pappu as CI Ravi Prakash
• Bonny Mary Mathew as Littu
• Jayaraj as Mall security
• Vineeth Sreenivasan as Kanchan, Jail convict (cameo)
• Kookal Raghavan as Raghavan
• Lakshmi Marikar as Helen's friend
• Lali Marikar as Azhar's mother
• Thrissur Elsy as Devamma
• Adinadu Sasi as Constable Sudevan
• Vinu Vijayakumar as JinsBabu
• Sreekanth Muraly as Doctor
• Krishna as man who hits Azhar's bike in accident
• Nazrudeen Valiyaveettil as North Indian Mall Security
• Malavika Wales

According to Mathukutty Xavier, he wanted to make a survival thriller as there was not much Malayalam films made on that genre since the 1992 film Malootty. The story was inspired from an incident that had taken place abroad. While writing, they had visited meat freezers in Aroor and Alappuzha and met workers who had stuck in freezers for 5–6 hours. Eventually, a girl getting trapped in a meat freezer became its basic thread. Similar incidents reported in newspaper were referred and formed a fictional plot. Characters such as the girl's father and boyfriend were brought in to make it emotionally connected to the audience. Their motive was to target family and youth audience.[6] After completing the script Xavier went to meet Vineeth Sreenivasan for his feedback. On hearing the script halfway through, Vineeth expressed interest in producing the film.[7][8]

On 1 August 2019, Vineeth Sreenivasan announced the film with Anna Ben in the lead role and a title poster was released.[9] It was reported Lal would play Helen's father and Noble Babu Thomas was paired opposite Anna.[3] It was reported to be a woman-centric film, in which Anna plays a girl who works in a fast food joint in Kochi.[10]

On 1 November 2019, the first song of the film titled "Pon Thaarame" sung by Vineeth Sreenivasan and Divya S. Menon was released.[11] Composed by Shaan Rahman, its lyrics were written by Vinayak Sasikumar, Vineeth Sreenivasan and Manu Manjith.[12]

The film was released on 15 November 2019. Funtastic Films headed by Visakh Subramaniam and Aju Varghese was in charge of the film's distribution.

The film is being remade in Tamil language directed by Gokul and produced by Arun Pandian under his company A&P Groups, and starring Keerthi Pandian and Arun Pandian. Filming commenced on 7 February 2020. The title of the film is yet to be announced.[22][23] Lohit H. of Friday Films acquired the film's remake rights for Kannada, which is to be directed by debutants Arunkumar M. and Sabu Aloysius. Lasya Nagaraj was confirmed to play the central character. The film is in production and is said to commence filming in Mysore.[24] The film will also have a Telugu-language remake starring Anupama Parameswaran. Prasad V. Potluri will be producing the film which will be directed by debutant Hanuman Chowdary.[25] Pinkvilla reported that the film is also being remade into Hindi language starring Janhvi Kapoor. The film will be produced by Boney Kapoor and Zee Studios.[26]

• Helen at IMDb
• Helen at Letterboxd