So maybe director Tate Taylor's big-screen adaptation of Kathryn Stockett's The Help doesn't revolve around the Christmas holiday, but it's timely December 6 DVD release was reason enough for me to start my holiday buying. Yes, I'm one of those people who waits until December to start Christmas shopping. What's more, I always buy myself a little present first, just to get me in the gift giving mood.
If you haven't seen the movie, or read the book, think of The Help as this generation's Driving Miss Daisy mixed with a healthy dose of Fried Green Tomatoes.
Like Miss Daisy, The Help, at its core, analyses the personal and professional relationships between African Americans and the upper-crust Southern white folks the work for in the early '60s. Like it's Fried Green counterpart, one of the main characters in The Help adds a secret ingredient to a southern delicacy, although something tells me there will never be a The Help cookbook.
Also similar to both Miss Daisy and Fried Green Tomatoes, The Help boast a strong female cast. Emma Stone plays Eugenia 'Skeeter' Phelan, a young white woman who's a recent graduate of the University of Mississippi. She returns home to Jackson to gain experience as a writer with hopes of moving to New York and fulfilling her dream of becoming a published author.
When she lands a job at the local newspaper, writing a homemaker's column, she reaches out to a few of her friend's maids for advice. What she discovers is an untapped story from the perspective of the black women who actually run the white households.
Viola Davis is cast asAibileen, a maid with a lifetime of service to area white families. Her latest charge is to care for young Mae Mobley (Eleanor and Emma Henry), the daughter ofElizabeth Leefolt. Davis provides some of the film's most touching moments as she strives to instill courage and pride in not only her charges, but her own children as well. Then there's Octavia Spencer as Minny Jackson who's landed a job working for snooty Hilly Walters Holbrook (Bryce Dallas Howard). Spencer's Minny not only stands up to her overbearing boss, but gets the last laugh, literally, as she adds the aforementioned secret ingredient to a pie for Hilly.
Yes, the movieis, dare I say it, whitewashed, largely glossing over the seriousness of its racially tense subplot, but it is, after all, Hollywood's version of a bestselling novel, not a work of non-fiction. Even so, the story broaches the subject of race relations in the south, as well as personal relationships, early feminism and the daunting challenge of breaking from traditions and expectations to grow, learn and evolve.
Thanks to a phenomenal cast, including: Mary Steenburgen, Leslie Jordan, Sissy Spacek, Cicely Tyson, Allison Janney, Nelsan Ellis and an already award-winning turn by Jessica Chastain, The Help is sure to rack up tons more awards in the coming months.
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