Harry He's Here to Help

Director Dominik Moll made a hugely successful comeback with the multi award-winning thriller, ‘Harry, He’s Here to Help’. Not only has it been deemed as one of his best films to date, but also as one of the film highlights of the year 2000. With a superb cast and a masterful combination of black comedy and suspense thriller, the film is utterly captivating from start to finish.

Stopping at a service station whilst driving his wife and three daughters to their holiday home in the country, Michel meets Harry, a school acquaintance he barely recalls. Harry, on the other hand, remembers perhaps a little too much. When he invites himself to join Michel, the family holiday takes a macabre turn. Harry is prepared to go to extraordinary lengths to help the family, who are left questioning whether there is something sinister behind his acts of kindness.

The film draws significantly from various sources, including Hitchcock and Stephen King, while the cinematography is unmistakably that of a French thriller. The tension and suspense is maintained throughout and thanks to intelligent performances and an excellent script, the film never fails to inject a variety of darkly comedic moments into a story, which is infused by both elements of the fantastically absurd and the soberingly real.

Quite deservedly, the film was nominated for numerous awards, including the Palme D’Or at Cannes as well as a BAFTA. It also won many more, notably at the Césars, including Best Director and Best Actor for Sergi López, whose performance as Harry abounds with all the necessary ambivalence for this wonderfully entertaining and disturbing thriller.