Based on the best-selling novel by Kathryn Stockett and directed by Tate Taylor, The Help is set in Jackson, Mississippi, during the early 1960s, when African Americans were denied equal rights. Find out more in this Kidzworld Movie Review!
Revolving around the lives of several families and their African American maids, the story starts with Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan (played by Emma Stone) returning home after graduating from university to find her family’s maid Constantine has left without anyone telling her why.
An aspiring writer, Skeeter quickly lands a job at the local newspaper, but not writing the kinds of stories she thinks will matter, in fact she writes a daily cleaning column and so turns to her friends' maids to get advice. She decides to dig deeper into the problems in her hometown’s society after spending time with her friends who have all married and started families while she was at school, and she soon finds that even though the maids are like part of the family, no one has ever bothered to hear their side of things. Meanwhile they are often treated poorly, especially when the wives in charge are trying to make a good impression on their friends. Struck by inspiration Skeeter decides to collect stories from all the maids about their experiences and turn it into a book, starting with the maids of her friends, like patient and sad Aibileen (played by Viola Davis) and sassy Minny (played by Octavia Spencer). The maids and Skeeter hope the book will drag a place too stuck in its ways into the civil rights movement that is sweeping across America during that time.
The Help has an outstanding cast, and they pull off a movie that is uplifting and funny, but also dramatic and serious. Emma Stone is incredibly likeable as the courageous young journalist who wants to make a difference and empathizes with plight of the hired help, and Viola Davis’ performance as a patient, shy woman who never raises her voice when spoken too harshly but loves children is heartbreaking, and the audience truly feels her strength of character when she decides to speak out and help Skeeter, and eventually learns to speak her mind even to her employers. Octavia Spencer’s sassy scenes where she quips one-liners make the movie incredibly funny, and Bryce Dallas Howard does an excellent job of portraying a woman so stuck up and concerned with appearances that she intimidates her friends and family with her foolish ideas of what is “right.”
An added bonus in seeing this movie is the fantastic clothes, especially the beautiful dresses and shoes from this classic era in fashion. Overall The Help is a good film that will make you laugh even through the tears.
Check out the preview below:
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