The Ocean of Helena Lee

4/4 Stars Rating
"This is a film well worth seeking out—a graceful and intelligent hymn to youth, perseverance and self-reliance featuring hypnotic imagery, captivating performances, a soundtrack that you will want to download as soon as possible and a final shot that will haunt you for a long time
after it ends."
      – Peter Sobczynski, RogerEbert.com

“Helena is a cinematic descendant of Days of Heaven's Linda Manz…she remains an inquisitive presence throughout, a trait Akin admirably matches via a playfully elliptical style…so gleefully — even stubbornly — its own thing… that its mere status as a released-in-theaters movie surely counts as a victory for independent film.”
     – Michael Nordine, LA Weekly

“Whimsical and poignant, devastating and hopeful, The Ocean of Helena Lee stayed with me long after the final frame.”
     – Sheila O’Malley - The Sheila Variations, RogerEbert.com

“His sense of where to break from scenes and how to tender connections between individual moments speaks to his own intangible impulses as a provocative conductor of moments…one can discern the spirit of Kings of the Road-era Wim Wenders flitting around the edges…as well as Fellini’s affinity for unusual human and environmental beauty…a Dardennes Brothers joint on rollerblades.”
      – Dennis Cozzalio, Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule, Trailers From Hell

“The Ocean of Helena Lee belongs to a heartfelt class of movies…it sits proudly alongside the likes of Rebel Without a Cause (1955), The Effects of Gamma Rays On Man-In-the-Moon Marigolds (1972), both versions of The Champ and American Heart (1992).”
      – Richard Harland Smith, TCM’s Movie Morlocks

“The Ocean of Helena Lee is a lyrical and meditative work…it’s an Alice in the Cities for modern audiences who still believe that cinema is our greatest art form.”
      – Jeremy Richey, Moon in the Gutter, Art Decades quarterly

12 year old Helena Lee’s lyrical pilgrimage from summer to spring with her bohemian surf-rat father in the carnival of California’s Venice beach.

Writer/director Jim Akin’s autobiographical second feature film is a music-driven celebration of impermanence and self-reliance.
The film marks the introduction of lead actress, Moriah Blonna, whose arresting image and kaleidoscopic emotional projections inform an indelible “Helena Lee”.

Tom Dunne (who played the leading role of Eli Willits in Akin’s debut feature “After the Triumph of Your Birth”) plays Micky Lee, Helena’s tormented, libertine father. Tom, a former lifeguard, plays drums and percussion on the film’s score
and soundtrack.

Internationally acclaimed singer/songwriter Maria Mckee (Lone Justice, Pulp Fiction) is co-producer on the film. She and husband Akin collaborated on the score and soundtrack. McKee also appears in the film as Helena’s numinous mother.

Jim Akin wrote, directed, shot, captured sound and edited the film; a crew of one on set. The score was recorded in Akin and McKee’s home studio in Los Angeles.

Akin’s choice to cast a female as his younger self was driven by his view that “girl’s are better”.