The year is 1962. The place? Jackson, Mississippi. Based on Kathryn Stockett's best-selling novel, The Help deals with the racial tensions of the South during the Civil Rights movement.
In the movie, a young writer named Skeeter returns home from college to her friends Hilly (Bryce Dallas Howard), the stereotypical queen bee of the Women's Junior League and town racist, and Elizabeth (Ahna O'Reilly), Hilly's loyal follower. Skeeter is played by Emma Stone, who does a great job representing Skeeter's personality, but is, in my opinion, too pretty to be the tall, gangly, frizzy-haired girl descriped in the book. Skeeter gets a job as an advice columnist for the Jackson journal while working on a bigger writing idea -- a book of autobiographies, stories of black maids told from their perspective. At first, no one would agree to work on the book, but soon Elizabeth's servent Aibileen (Viola Davis) and her friend Minny (Octavia Spencer) sign up, later followed by serveral other women. They work in secret, especially avioding Hilly, who knows Skeeter is up to something and is determined to find out what.While by no means an action movie, the film moves forward at a steady pace, with lots happening. The plot switches among the lives of Aibileen, Minny, and Skeeter. However, unlike the novel, which had each of their stories told in first person, the movie is narrated solely in the soft, gentle voice of Aibileen.
One aspect of The Help that I loved was the costume design, which captured the time period quite well. I felt the same way about the hairstyles, and the cozy diner and colored church, each of which is the setting for a few scenes.
When Skeeter's book finally gets published, there is little climax, but that was fine with me. it worked for Stockett's novel, and it works for this movie. At times, The Help made me laugh, and at other times, it moved me to tears (especially with Viola Davis' acting). A movie like that is a rare and beautiful thing.
