Review: Help, with Jodie Comer as a Care worker

Help is a film from the UK about the first few months of the COVID pandemic and how Care homes in Britain tried to deal with the situation. This Acorn TV import puts you right at the heart of how it felt to be hopelessly unprepared for the deaths of the people in your care.

Help stars Jodie Comer as Sarah, a screw up who had never been able to hold a job. She applies to work at a Care home. After some complaints about her lack of skills, the boss Steve (Ian Hart) gives her a job. She turns out to be really good at it.

Sarah is good with the elderly and the dementia patients. They respond well to her care.

She manages really well with one resident in particular, Tony (Stephen Graham), who has early onset Alzheimers. She finds him when he tries to go home and brings him back. She enjoys his clear moments when they play cards or tell jokes. She recognizes what a good man he is.

When coronavirus hits and the situation quickly becomes overwhelming she’s been working at her job about 5 months. There’s no protective equipment, there’s no help from the government, ambulances are impossible to find, and people are dying.

One night Sarah is the only one there, coping with everything alone. A patient with the virus is struggling to breathe. Sarah enlists Tony’s help in turning the man onto his stomach in hopes he can breath better that way. But she’s put Tony in danger by doing it.

The boss, Steve, has been out sick himself. When he comes back and Sarah argues with him about Tony’s care, he tells her to take two weeks off. He doesn’t fire her, but he wants her gone for a while.

When she leaves, she does something desperate to try to protect Tony. I won’t tell you what that is because it introduces a twist into the third act and the way the film ends that shouldn’t be spoiled.

Jodie Comer and Stephen Graham were both fantastic in Help. It was an emotionally draining story that must have been tough for them as actors. It was hard to watch – it’s one thing to hear on the news every night that health care systems are overwhelmed – it’s another thing to watch someone who can act as well as Jodie Comer be right in it. If you don’t already appreciate the sacrifices and burdens that this pandemic has put on health care workers, you will after seeing this film.