Running Time: 2 hours, 17 minutes
Rating: PG-13
Director: Tate Taylor
Quick Impressions:
I don’t think the theater anticipated how many people would come to this movie on opening night. If it wasn’t sold out, I’d be shocked. I’m almost positive that every seat was filled by the time the movie started, and this was a Wednesday in the suburbs. My husband and I have been excited about The Help for some time. We haven’t read the book. We just really like Emma Stone and Viola Davis. I also love Bryce Dallas Howard (who has starred in some of the worst movies out there) and Alison Janney (who has co-starred in seemingly every successful movie ever made). After watching The Help, I’m also quite a fan of Octavia Spencer, Jessica Chastain, and pretty much the entire rest of the cast.
I have to say that while I’ve wanted to see this movie all summer, I’ve also been apprehensive about writing the review. You can tell from the preview that this is the type of movie that elicits two very negative responses, certain to condemn anyone foolish enough to like it.
1)If you like this movie, then you are either a racist or stupid or both because this movie purporting to be against racism is secretly wildly racist and hoodwinks its stupid, passively racist audience into thinking it’s not 2) This movie is unrealistically simplistic and panders to its audience; it’s a feel good movie about a subject that shouldn’t make people feel good.
I anticipate these responses because of past experience with race-related material.
And now I will dare to say that I loved The Help. I won’t pretend to be an expert on race relations in Mississippi during the Civil Rights era. I’m not a historian. I’m not from Mississippi. I’ve never been a maid. I’ve never had a maid. And I’ve never read the wildly popular book, either. So this isn’t an expert opinion. It’s just my opinion.
The Help is a great movie, particularly for summer. August seems like an odd time for its release. In some ways, the movie seems more like a late fall release, something positioned by release-date to be in contention for Oscar consideration. But of course, the movie leaves the audience feeling quite positive and uplifted, and since it’s not a true story, this probably means it’s not depressing, gritty, and real enough for Oscar consideration (though I certainly hope that Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer get noticed for their amazing performances).
Before seeing this movie, my husband and I had agreed that Super 8 was the best movie of the summer. After the movie, my husband announced that The Help had now moved into his #1 slot. I’m still thinking. (As I’ve said, it was different in tone from every other summer release, and that makes comparisons tricky.) I will say that I loved it, and I wasn’t alone. The audience applauded at the end (not just a few people, almost everyone). Sometimes I laugh when that happens, but this time, the response seemed totally appropriate to me.
The movie is a crowd pleaser. But what’s so bad about that? It results in a pleased crowd. I wish more movies could achieve that, frankly. I left Transformers wanting to murder everyone in the parking lot, so the uplifting, satisfying feeling that came over me at the end of The Help was much better.
The Good and The Great:
I understand where people are coming from when they point out that many of the people cheering for Aibileen and clapping at The Help would have been more like Hilly Holbrook in the 1960s, insisting on separate but equal treatment for African Americans, treating their unmarried, college-educated, odd-ball friend with snide condescension, and hypocritically hosting a benefit for starving African children while ignoring their own children and persecuting the African Americans in their town.
Now it’s fashionable to be in favor of “the help,” just like forcing them to have separate bathrooms was the norm in the movie. And yes, that’s true. I’m quite positive that no one in the racially mixed audience was rooting for Hilly instead of Aibileen. But isn’t that a good thing? Isn’t it good that we’re able to identify and want to identify with the virtuous characters in the story instead of the vicious ones? Yes, it’s simplistic, but so what? This movie may not be perfect, and racism in this country is very far from dead, but still, this movie could not have been made in 1963. And if someone did dare to make it, surely it wouldn’t have opened to a packed house in a theater in a small town in Texas.
Taken on its own terms, the story is thoroughly engrossing and amazingly affective. Even with a running time approaching two-and-a-half hours, The Help never dragged. It was riveting the entire time, and I wasn’t the only person who thought so. The audience was very responsive, and it honestly was a movie that made you laugh, cry, cringe, jump, and cheer.
The Performances:
Viola Davis is an amazingly powerful actress. I first became aware of her in Doubt. When you only appear in one short scene of a movie, steal the scene and practically steal the movie, and you’re acting opposite Meryl Streep, clearly you have talent. Emma Stone’s character is a vital catalyst, but Viola Davis is the real star and carries the movie as Aibileen Clark, a maid who discovers how liberating speaking the truth can be. (Of course, this sort of truth speaking usually works out better in uplifting works of fiction where you’re less likely to be murdered by a lynch mob for your subversive activities.)
Davis gives a commanding performance. Often her eyes alone speak volumes. She’s thoroughly convincing as a maid who’s devoted her life to caring for other people’s children, bitterly hurt when no one cared for her son in his time of need. The Help focuses more on a passive aggressive form of polite racism rather than the physical violence seen mainly from a distance, but Davis conveys courage in the face of fear so well that we get a glimpse of the danger she faces in her emotive eyes. Strong and centered, Aibileen is a character we trust, one we’re glad to learn more about and sympathize with easily.
Octavia Spencer is equally impressive as Minny Jackson. She plays a more extroverted character, more outspoken than the introspective Aibileen. She’s absolutely wonderful. Minny’s a character the audience loves instinctively after spending just a few minutes with her, and the longer she’s onscreen, the more likeable she becomes. Spencer gives a beautiful performance, and has wonderful chemistry with Davis. It’s easy to believe that the pair are true friends, always able to turn to one another in times of crisis. Spenser also has great chemistry with Jessica Chastain, and watching the initially tenuous relationship between undeserving outcasts Minny and Celia Foote blossom into one of mutual respect and trust is one of the great joys of the movie.
The outstanding performances of Davis and Spencer are reason enough to see the movie. Even people who find the film too contrived or too syrupy for their tastes surely can’t deny that these two actresses do some magnificent work.
Allison Janney is also fantastic as Charlotte Phelan, Skeeter’s chronically ill and incurably dramatic mother who seems like she took a break from a broadway production of The Glass Menagerie to grace The Help with her presence. Janney does a great job being funny, vexing, sympathetic, and frustrating simultaneously, not an easy task. Despite her melodramatic leanings, Janney’s Charlotte comes across as one of the most realistic characters in the story, a good-hearted, well-meaning woman who succumbs to peer pressure because she doesn’t exactly have convictions, let alone the courage to stand up for them. I thought that The Help was very kind to give her character a moment of pseudo-redemption near the end of the film.
I’ve truly loved Bryce Dallas Howard ever since I saw her in The Village, a film in which she impressed me as being both beautiful and talented. Sadly, even though she remains beautiful and talented, over the years, her material has often let her down. Finally, she’s in a movie that a lot of people will see and like, and she’s wonderfully awful as controlling racist socialite Hilly Holbrook. It’s impossible to watch the movie without hating Hilly Holbrook. You can’t imagine my delight. What a wonderful part! Howard does a flawless job of making the entire audience hate her. She’s really deliciously rotten to the core.
I’d watch Emma Stone in anything. I’d probably watch a movie in which she did nothing but actually write a housekeeping column. She’s great. And as Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan, she gets a chance to play a different kind of role for her. She does a lovely job of being understated and unassuming as the charmingly rebellious Skeeter, a character whose best moments come when she remembers her maid (and mother-figure) Constantine (played by Cicely Tyson, always a pleasure to see on screen). Then we see that although she wants to become a respected journalist, the book she’s writing means more to her than simply a ticket to professional success. Skeeter is a likeable character (for today’s audiences), but she’s really only there as a vehicle for enabling Aibileen to tell her story, and she seems to know this and never tries to upstage. One of the loveliest things about the story is that Skeeter has become who she is because of the loving encouragement of Constantine, a fact she herself recognizes and proclaims.
Jessica Chastain was thoroughly enchanting as Celia Foote, and Sissy Spacek probably had the one of the most humorous parts in the movie as Missus Walters, Hilly’s surprisingly delightful mother, a reasonably kind woman (especially when compared to her daughter), with a love of humor despite her advancing senility. Leslie Jordan, fantastically hilarious as Mr. Blackly was the other character who always got a laugh, stealing just about every scene he was in.
Best Scene:
When Mae Mobley (played by Eleanor and Emma Henry) uses one of the commodes on Hilly’s lawn, her mother (played by Ahna O’Reilly) reacts to the little girl’s proud declaration that she’s used the potty with an immediate and horrified spanking.
As a mother of a potty training child, this scene really spoke to me. I felt terrible for the little girl, who expected to be praised but got punished, terrible for Aibileen, who has to watch the harmful scolding in pained silence, and kind of terrible for the mother, too, since she was so detached from her daughter’s life. It has to hurt to see that the maid can comfort your child while you can only upset her as much as she upsets and disappoints you. What a heart-breaking situation for everyone involved! Why on earth is this woman following Hilly so blindly, so desperate to please her? Why has she had children at all?
(And of course, there’s always the question—why is the maid allowed to change and potty train the child but not to use the same bathroom as the family herself?)
Best Scene Visually:
Without a doubt, the scene where Celia Foote goes to the yard to plant a rosebush makes a powerful impact on the audience. Poignant, beautiful, sad, it’s a scene you don’t soon forget.
Funniest Scene:
It’s hard not to see what’s coming the first time Minny refers to “the terrible awful.” After all, she’s gone to the door bearing a chocolate pie. But when she actually reveals what happened, the scene is pretty amusing, especially because of Sissy Spacek’s reaction as she realizes what’s actually going on.
Best Surprise:
The nature of Celia’s husband and Hilly’s former beau, Johnny Foote (played by Mike Vogel), took me by surprise. I definitely did not expect his reaction to meeting Minny.
The Negatives:
One flaw of the movie (which may also exist in the book; I don’t know) is that we learn absolutely nothing about what in the world makes Hilly Holbrook such a mean, nasty person. Surely someone who is so controlling and spiteful must be unhappy. Usually, that is the case. But we don’t learn anything about what makes Hilly tick at all. The only clue we get is when her mother, played by Sissy Spacek says, “Your father ruined you.” So we learn that her mother thinks she’s spoiled. That’s it.
Nowadays, it’s definitely in vogue to provide some (partially exculpating) explanation for bullies of the page and screen. Yes, the big, mean kid hits everybody, but it’s only because his dad hits him, or his mom’s in jail, or his grandma poisoned his dog on Christmas, or some sad reason that makes you feel vaguely guilty for hating the jerk so much before you learned his tragic secret.
The Help doesn’t try to redeem Hilly. She’s nasty till her final second of screen time. This does make the whole thing seem a bit like a Victorian Melodrama. When Hilly shows up, everyone can feel free to throw popcorn and yell, “Boo! Hiss!” at the screen. Then again, Hilly may be sincere in many of her deluded, racist convictions. In an early scene of the movie, she appears genuinely uncomfortable at the thought of using a bathroom also used by her friend’s maid. She’s so squeamish that she’s holding it to the point of physical discomfort.
Hilly’s hard to explain. Her venomous, hateful nature is perplexing. But then again, so is racism. Of course, Hilly Holbrook is fictional, but the pamphlet Skeeter reads on race relations issued by the state of Mississippi is a very real historical document. I remember trying to explain racism and the Civil Rights Movement to my stepson, then four, after we watched the movie Hairspray. How can you explain that to a child? It doesn’t make sense. But the Civil Rights movement happened, and racism was and is very real.
Not providing insight into Hilly’s character may make the movie a bit too simplistic. Then again, what if The Help had probed Hilly’s baffling meanness and found some way to resolve, redeem her, and turn her into a friend? That would have been ridiculous, far too much of a storybook ending. Why is Hilly Holbrook so mean? Why does racism exist? Hilly is fictional. But her obsession—maintaining separate but equal facilities for whites and African Americans? We all know that’s fact.
Another slight complaint (minor spoilers) is that there’s such a sense of palpable danger in the movie, but nothing really happens to the women for contributing their stories. As my husband pointed out, of course, the movie ends on a high note before there can really be too many negative ramifications. Now, mind you, I didn’t want anything horrible to happen to them. In fact, I spent much of the movie wishing, Oh, please, don’t let anything horrible happen to them! Skeeter, you’d better not tell that stupid guy what you’re doing.
And then in the tradition of feel good movies like this, everything turned out okay. I wanted it to, but I think the movie might have been better (as in greater, not more enjoyable) if something horrible had happened to Minny. (It would have had to have been Minny since Aibileen was narrating.)
Overall:
I loved The Help, and the audience I watched it with loved it, too. It was very satisfying on many levels, and I heard the woman sitting next to me telling her friends that it followed the book pretty closely with a few minor departures and some omissions.
(Of course, I once heard some pretentious guy in the movie Troy telling his date, “Wow, that was just like the book!” So you never know about strangers in the movie theater. To be fair to him, he might have been referring to a novelization of the movie Troy.)
The Help is an extremely satisfying story with incredibly lovable (and hateable) characters. I wish I had written the book. I’m sure it’s satisfying to have a theater full of people clapping because they’ve been moved by your story.
Some people might find the story too contrived. (I didn’t.) But I really think it’s impossible to deny the power of the performances, particularly those of Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer. It’s one of the most compelling movies I’ve seen this year and makes me eager for Oscar season and more substantial movies.