I Want You 1998

In the quiet British seaside town of Farhaven, a 14-year-old boy Honda, who has spoken little since witnessing his mother’s suicide years earlier, bumps into hairdresser Helen and notices she drops her bracelet. That small, almost accidental moment becomes a bridge between two troubled lives: Honda silently returns the bracelet, and Helen, surprised by the gesture, begins to treat him with unexpected warmth. The incident plants a fragile connection in a landscape where silence often speaks louder than words, and it lingers long enough to shape what follows.

Eight years later, Helen’s ex-boyfriend Martin returns from prison and, still haunted by her, struggles to approach her directly. He fills the ache with a troubling substitute, hiring a sex worker who bears some of Helen’s familiar features, hoping to rekindle what was lost. Meanwhile, Honda and Helen’s world becomes entangled with risk: Honda learns that Helen has a partner, a radio DJ named Bob, and watches as their relationship frays under the weight of fear and control. Helen refuses Bob’s sexual advances, a tension that grows until Bob’s aggression spills into the airwaves, and Honda, with help from Helen’s older sister, helps expose Bob’s violence on his own radio show—an act that shatters Bob’s image and deepens the rift between him and Helen.

As the drama tightens, Bob spots Honda near the couple and pursues him, while Martin, who has been shadowing Bob, ends up beating Bob in a fit of protective rage. Honda’s sister, believing she’s shielding her brother, begins dating Martin, even as Martin’s attention remains fixed on Helen. The trio’s precarious arrangement spirals further when Helen, out one night at a nightclub, reconnects with Sam, an old friend, and they share a kiss and a dance. The moment seems hopeful until Helen, again, refuses to have sex, and a violent confrontation with Martin erupts when he attacks Sam. Shocked and frightened, Helen flees, finding solace in Honda’s quiet presence, who has followed the night’s events with a patient, almost protective vigil.

Helen’s painful history resurfaces in a brutal honesty: when she was fourteen, she was drawn into a sexual relationship with Martin, an abuse that leaves a lasting scar. The revelation casts every later moment in a new, heavier light, and Martin’s presence becomes a constant threat. After a tense confrontation, Helen seeks a restraining order—but Martin, fearing jail, chooses to leave town only after one last visit. That night, Helen invites Honda to her house. She manipulates the situation to force Honda into exposing himself, then, with Martin knocking at the door, she keeps Honda out of sight as she faces him. They agree to have one final encounter before he leaves, but the encounter devolves into horror as Martin begins to strangle Helen. Honda intervenes, smashing a bottle to break the assault, and Martin finally reveals the truth: it was Helen who killed her father. In a grim turn, Helen seizes a bust and beats Martin to death, then convinces Honda to help dispose of the body in the river—the same river where they had hidden her father years earlier.

Trauma and fear radiate outward as Helen’s silhouette fades from Farhaven. She leaves town, while Honda, left reeling, begins to reconstruct a life from the shards of what he witnessed and what he did. The recordings Honda makes in the aftermath hint at a slow, uncertain return to speech for him, a quiet echo of the boy who once chose not to speak, now slowly finding his voice again amid the echoes of the town’s darkest secrets.