In an effort to get pumped up for the Oscars, welcome to the Battle of the Best Picture--Movie Trailers. Who can say what film will win Best Picture at this year's Academy Awards, on Feb 26, 2012. But as for Best Trailer, you decide.
It's rare to find a film that was released during the summer wind up with so much attention during awards season. Yet, The Help has proven to be 2011's breakthrough film and is now up for three awards at this month's Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
Though the trailer begins by introducing viewers to spunky, wannabe journalist Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan, the film begins with Viola Davis as Aibileen Clark, telling audiences about her life as a maid during the Civil Rights era in the 1960s. This first moment of the film where Aibileen describes raising white women's daughters is very touching, we see her sadness over the loss of her own son being placed onto the children she ends up raising, and when the film concludes with Aibileen parting from little Mae Mobley audiences are reminded again of the heartbreak of loosing a family member.
But none of that is in the trailer. So at this point in the trailer, viewers may think the story is told through the eyes of Skeeter, and that the film is more about snappy one liners than storyline. The film is so much better than what the trailer suggests. It's not so much a story about characters, but of relationships between these characters. Besides the wonderful acting (Viola Davis is up for Best Actress and Octavia Spencer and Jessica Chastain are competting for Best Supporting Actress) the film captures a small slice of what it was like to be a maid for the privileged elite of Jackson, Mississippi, getting a sense of the social and polictical unrest during that time. And like the book by Kathryn Stockett, its a story that has not been told in mainstream film often, which is evidenced by the fact that so few women of color win Academy Awards.
The song at the end of the trailer is a bit overwrought, but fits well with the message of the film, it's called "Change the World" featuring Taylor Dayne.
All in all a very deserving film, the trailer needs some work, but by now hopefully most audiences have seen the film.
Oscar's air Feb. 26 on ABC, 4:00 pacific-time.
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