Review of The Help

I have been a bit slack with my movie reviews of late, so today you get two for the price of one. The Help which I saw last weekend at the cinema and Due Date which was our Tuesday night movie courtesy of Lovefilm.

The Help - currently in cinemas.

Year: 2011

Writer: Kathryn Stockett (novel), Tate Taylor (screenplay.)

Director: Tate Taylor

Starring:  Emma Stone, Viola Davis, Bryce Dallas Howard, Octavia Spencer, Allison Janey

Plot:  Set in Mississippi during the 1960s, Skeeter is a southern society girl who returns from college determined to become a writer. But she turns her friends lives and a Mississippi town upside down when she decides to interview the black women who have spent their lives taking care of prominent southern families.



As I have already posted about the novel on this blog back in September I am not going to go over the plot in detail again or reiterate my love for the original source material. I want to focus more on how faithful the movie is to the novel and also how it plays to those coming to it with fresh eyes.

Having absolutely fallen in love with the novel while reading it for my book group and hearing so much Oscar buzz about this film since July, I came to it with the same apprehension as when I went to see One Day. While I was pleasantly surprised with that film, this movie exceeded my expectations! Top marks go to the casting directors Kerry Barden and Paul Schnee, who managed to find Skeeter's geekiness and empathy in rising star Emma Stone, Minny's sassiness in Octavia Spencer, Hilly Holbrook's prejudice and vengefulness in Bryce Dallas Howard and Aibleen's quiet strength in Viola Davis.

To be honest I could go on, as there is not single female performance in this movie that deserves to go unmentioned. It is great to see a mainstream movie with such a wide range of well developed female characters and I can imagine that every actress in Hollywood was fighting to be a part of this picture. Particular praise has to go to Jessica Chastain as dizzy blonde Celia Foote. She is the spitting image of how I imagined the character to be when reading the novel and her portrayal of Celia as being a naive girl with a big heart avoids the dumb white trash girl route that other actresses may have been tempted to take.

At no point during the movie did I feel anyone in the cinema getting restless and the balance of humour and pathos was just right, tears were shed in sadness and happiness!

If I had to come up with one negative point about the film, it would be that I feel it does shirk away slightly from some of the more controversial plot points or negative aspects of the characters. For example, in the boo  at no point do you feel any sympathy for Elizabeth Leefolt in her neglect of her daughter, while in the movie the character seems more conflicted in her actions. Readers of the novel may also be annoyed by the fact that the whole plot strand involving the reasons for the firing of Skeeter's childhood maid has been completely changed to something much more simplistic and less taboo.

To summarise this is a fantastically scripted and directed movie with some fantastic female performances and I am sure it is bound to come away with many Oscar nominations!

I would love to know if you have seen this film and if so what you thought of it? If you read the book, did it meet your expectations?