My problem with the trailers for The Help this summer was that it made the movie seem peppy and silly, a kind of "oh look at the squabbling white and black ladies, aren't you glad we're past all that now?" aesthetic that seemed at odds with the subject matter. Now that I've watched the movie, I can say I was completely misled.
I read Kathryn Stockett's novel several months ago and quite liked it, even though it seemed a bit trite towards the end. The story follows Miss Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan, a white girl from 1960s Jackson, Mississippi who has wide-eyed aspirations to be a journalist. She is nothing like her friends who just went to college to find a husband and never bothered to graduate once they achieved this goal. Skeeter hits upon the idea to collect stories from the "help," the black women who form such an integral part of the white households in Jackson and are yet treated as complete non-entities. Emma Stone plays Skeeter Phelan with aplomb, portraying her as a naive girl willing to see the best in everyone and driven by her love for her own maid who raised her as a young girl and gave her self-confidence when her own mother always seemed to criticize. Skeeter befriends two maids, Aibileen (Viola Davis) and Minny (Octavia Spencer) who give her the stories that becomes the backbone of her book.
What begins as innocent story-telling quickly burgeons into a revealing look at racial tensions at the heart of Jackson. Things come to a head when Skeeter's old friend, Hilly Holbrook, decides to launch the "Home Help Sanitation Initiative," a move for every household to have separate restrooms for black servants, since "they carry different diseases than us." Holbrook is played by Bryce Dallas-Howard who does an impeccable job portraying a racist masquerading as a good Christian and who sets your teeth on edge with every word. Eager to get back at Miss Hilly, Minny and Aibileen help Skeeter recruit more black maids to secretly share their stories and the project quickly grows. One of the sweetest moments of the film (and of the book) involve some maids who tell stories of genuine friendship with their employers, people who treated them well and never made them feel inferior. We see this kind of relationship through Minny's dealings with her new employer, Miss Celia Foote, who is as much of an outcast as Minny because Hilly and her bridge buddies have deemed her to be too "white trash" to be worthy of their company. Celia Foote is played by Jessica Chastain who brings to life this over the top but kind at heart character who just wants to make new friends outside of her home town of Sugar Ditch and thinks nothing of treating her maid like her best friend.
However, the true star of this film is Viola Davis, who plays Aibileen with a quiet dignity and sorrow that tugs at your heartstrings from the very first scene. She left school at 14 to be a maid and this is the only life she has known. She raises these white children like they were her own and no mother could be more loving than Aibileen when she sits down with three-year old Mae Mobley and solemnly tells her, "You is kind. You is smart. You is important." In one scene Aibileen argues that she and Minny can't get in trouble because what they're doing is not civil rights, they're just telling stories. Well it turns out that the smallest act of bravery can help change things, and it is precisely Aibileen's humility and inability to realize what a great thing she is doing that make her such a marvelous character.
Much talk has been made of how simplistic The Help is and how it doesn't do justice to its characters. I heartily disagree. Perhaps some reviewers were thrown by the fact that the black characters were better realized than the white ones - after all Hollywood is infamous for rendering its black characters as mere caricatures while giving all the depth to the white actors. But this film is no Gone with the Wind and rests squarely on the shoulders of Davis and Spencer's powerhouse performances.
Ultimately the movie ends on a bittersweet note. Things might be tied up somewhat neatly, but anyone who knows anything about the Civil Rights era can imagine that the story still has miles to go after the end. The book and the movie might try to pretend that everything will be OK, but you can draw your own conclusions about what will happen next. Just focus on the story itself and you will find a tale that is alternately funny, sad, dark, and hopeful. Just like life itself.
I read Kathryn Stockett's novel several months ago and quite liked it, even though it seemed a bit trite towards the end. The story follows Miss Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan, a white girl from 1960s Jackson, Mississippi who has wide-eyed aspirations to be a journalist. She is nothing like her friends who just went to college to find a husband and never bothered to graduate once they achieved this goal. Skeeter hits upon the idea to collect stories from the "help," the black women who form such an integral part of the white households in Jackson and are yet treated as complete non-entities. Emma Stone plays Skeeter Phelan with aplomb, portraying her as a naive girl willing to see the best in everyone and driven by her love for her own maid who raised her as a young girl and gave her self-confidence when her own mother always seemed to criticize. Skeeter befriends two maids, Aibileen (Viola Davis) and Minny (Octavia Spencer) who give her the stories that becomes the backbone of her book.
What begins as innocent story-telling quickly burgeons into a revealing look at racial tensions at the heart of Jackson. Things come to a head when Skeeter's old friend, Hilly Holbrook, decides to launch the "Home Help Sanitation Initiative," a move for every household to have separate restrooms for black servants, since "they carry different diseases than us." Holbrook is played by Bryce Dallas-Howard who does an impeccable job portraying a racist masquerading as a good Christian and who sets your teeth on edge with every word. Eager to get back at Miss Hilly, Minny and Aibileen help Skeeter recruit more black maids to secretly share their stories and the project quickly grows. One of the sweetest moments of the film (and of the book) involve some maids who tell stories of genuine friendship with their employers, people who treated them well and never made them feel inferior. We see this kind of relationship through Minny's dealings with her new employer, Miss Celia Foote, who is as much of an outcast as Minny because Hilly and her bridge buddies have deemed her to be too "white trash" to be worthy of their company. Celia Foote is played by Jessica Chastain who brings to life this over the top but kind at heart character who just wants to make new friends outside of her home town of Sugar Ditch and thinks nothing of treating her maid like her best friend.
However, the true star of this film is Viola Davis, who plays Aibileen with a quiet dignity and sorrow that tugs at your heartstrings from the very first scene. She left school at 14 to be a maid and this is the only life she has known. She raises these white children like they were her own and no mother could be more loving than Aibileen when she sits down with three-year old Mae Mobley and solemnly tells her, "You is kind. You is smart. You is important." In one scene Aibileen argues that she and Minny can't get in trouble because what they're doing is not civil rights, they're just telling stories. Well it turns out that the smallest act of bravery can help change things, and it is precisely Aibileen's humility and inability to realize what a great thing she is doing that make her such a marvelous character.
Much talk has been made of how simplistic The Help is and how it doesn't do justice to its characters. I heartily disagree. Perhaps some reviewers were thrown by the fact that the black characters were better realized than the white ones - after all Hollywood is infamous for rendering its black characters as mere caricatures while giving all the depth to the white actors. But this film is no Gone with the Wind and rests squarely on the shoulders of Davis and Spencer's powerhouse performances.
Ultimately the movie ends on a bittersweet note. Things might be tied up somewhat neatly, but anyone who knows anything about the Civil Rights era can imagine that the story still has miles to go after the end. The book and the movie might try to pretend that everything will be OK, but you can draw your own conclusions about what will happen next. Just focus on the story itself and you will find a tale that is alternately funny, sad, dark, and hopeful. Just like life itself.
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| Octavia Spencer & Viola Davis, the true heart of The Help. I demand Best Supporting Actress nominations for at least one of them, if not both. |
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