The Help

Director: Tate Taylor
Writers: Tate Taylor, Kathryn Stockett
Starring: Emma Stone, Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer
Release Date: August 10, 2011
Length: 2 hours 26 minutes

2009’s New York Time’s Best-Selling hit, The Help by Kathryn Stockett is being transferred onto the big screen by Stockett’s childhood friend Tate Taylor, after only two years of the novel’s release. The film has this summer’s star Emma Stone, in her first dramatic role as lead character Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan.

In the early 1960s during the civil rights era, Skeeter has returned to her hometown of Jackson, Mississippi after four years at Ole Miss University. Skeeter comes home to her luxurious house, where her ill mother Charlotte (Alison Janney) tells her the family’s maid, Constantine (Cicely Tyson) has unexpectedly quit, moving to Chicago. Having been with the Phelan family for as long as she can remember, Skeeter can’t believe Constantine would leave without writing her goodbye. While all of Skeeter’s friends have settled down and married including her best friend Hilly Holbrook (Bryce Dallas Howard), Skeeter manages to land a job as a “homemakers hints” columnist for the Jackson Journal, pursuing her career as a writer. Skeeter asks her good friend Elizabeth’s maid, Abileen (Viola Davis) if she would help her on her columns, since Skeeter knows nothing about housekeeping.

After spending more and more time with Abilleen, Skeeter becomes uncomfortable with the way her good friends treat their “help”, especially Hilly. She becomes dangerously intrigued by these workingwomen and has a longing want to write an inspired book from their perspectives. After long strenuous attempts of getting the maids’ contributions, they finally agree to tell Skeeter their stories and she excitedly begins writing the book. Although she is changing the names and details to try to hide their identities, the idealistic Skeeter is unaware of the danger and risk she is putting these women in, in a town run by white racist women, who are controlled by the unstoppable Hilly.

I hate to be that cynical reader of the novel that will always compare the two together, so I will start off by saying that if you haven’t read the novel, this could be a cute feel-good summer family flick with strong performances for you. However, even so, it is hard to separate that this is somehow a simply cute movie that revolves around a very serious and emotional point in history. Stockett’s novel was filled with funny and clever moments that made you laugh, but there was always a grave backbone you could feel to the story. The film has many moving moments but somehow overall floats by pretty light. It’s almost as if every serious or solemn part in the story was diluted for the film, whether it was because everything in the novel had to be shortened or because the general feeling of the film wanted to be kept upbeat. The intensity of the main characters’ fear is much stronger in the novel and for good reason. In the film, there is a moment of  “Oh no, we could get in trouble for this,” but then they remember this book is going to change things in Jackson and they feel better.

Anything and everything that was enjoyable about this movie came from the enormously talented cast of fabulous actresses. I thought the day would come already, but I guess we will never get sick of Ms. Emma Stone, as she becomes more and more enjoyable in all her roles. She shows her true strengths as a dramatic actress as Skeeter, but still keeps that hilarious charm we know and love her for. No matter in comedy or drama, Stone always shows full complexity in her characters, and the adorable Skeeter is no exception. The only thing we can hope is that she will stop being stereotyped into the awkward funny girl, but for all we know, she could just bring that lovable quality to all her characters. Skeeter’s nemesis Hilly Holbrook is exceptionally portrayed by the gorgeous Bryce Dallas Howard. Howard was perfect as the wicked and truly villainous leader of naïve Jackson women, whose treatment toward African Americans is incomprehensibly disgusting. The constant wide smile across her face made our blood curl while her actions made us want to cry, and somehow I couldn’t take my eyes off of her when on screen. Previously starring as the malevolent vampire Victoria in Eclipse, and this fall as Joseph Gordon Levitt’s terrible girlfriend in 50/50, I wish to see her in a nice role or possibly a lead one to enjoy more of her talent.

You would think it would be impossible to fit this many “It Girls” into one movie, but the next actress that stole the screen away in her small role was a girl with a name no one can escape recently, Jessica Chastain. Chastain plays a blonde ditzy sweetheart named Celia Foote, who desperately wants to break into the group of women lead by Hilly but cannot because of Hilly’s jealousy for Celia’s husband, Johnny (Mike Vogel), who is her ex-boyfriend. Hilly also encourages the other girls to make fun of Celia’s hick background, coming from the poor dangerous southern neighbourhood, Sugar Ditch. Chastain makes Celia the most lovable character in the film, with her nonstop chatty conversation and attempts to befriend her reluctant maid, Minny (Octavia Spencer). Chastain brings smiles to all our faces while making us painfully sympathize for the numerous miscarriages she suffers and hides. Viola Davis (Doubt) is wonderfully moving as the lead maid character of the story, Abilleen, a woman we can tell is strong and confident but we ache for as she plays dumb and respectable for her younger white employers. When she is smart enough to say yes, she agrees with Hilly that maids should have separate bathrooms, you feel your heart rip to pieces, knowing she is doing this to keep her job.  She carries the film beautifully and puts us as close as we can get to feel what a black woman living in 1960s Mississippi would feel. Abileen’s best friend Minny, an outspoken difficult maid, providing for her many kids and abusive husband, is excellently and humorously played by Octavia Spencer. Although her numerous amount of sassy black girl one-liners were a bit too much for me, her intricate performance was just as moving as it was funny.

Overall, the cast including other great actresses like Alison Janney, Sissy Spacek and Cicely Tyson, was what made this film solid, and not a bore. However, if the story had been kept just as strong and multifaceted as the novel, this could have been an extraordinary film. I would have loved to have been blown over by the romance, humor, and emotional pull of the film like I had with the book, however this is absolutely not a bad film. The Help is extremely charming and enjoyable, but the lack of severity makes you question the realism of the setting. With the power of the phenomenal cast, there is no question you will like The Help, but if you were a reader of the novel, you will most likely let your disappointment override.