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Releasing a meaningful movie at the very end of summer is grossly unheard of from the executives up in Hollyweird and yet that’s exactly what Dreamworks and Touchstone Pictures have done with The Help. Powerful and powerfully moving, writer/director Tate Taylor’s The Help illuminates one Mississippi’s many, many racial wrongdoings by exploring exactly what it is like to raise someone else’s children while yours go without and the consequences therein. Of course, there is more to the movie than that. Much more. Hollywood should not - and probably will not - ignore this film when it comes time to hand out awards either. That, in itself, would be a shame. Yes, The Help and its three leads - Emma Stone, Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer - are that damn good.
The year is 1963. The place: Jackson, Mississippi. Racial lines have never been more defined and no one dare cross them. Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan (Emma Stone), empowered by her acquisition of a newspaper job answering advice letters, finds herself suddenly offended by her snooty “separate but equal” female friends - Hilly Holbrook (Bryce Dallas Howard) and helpless Elizabeth Leefolt (Ahna O'Reilly) – by how they treat the middle aged help - Aibileen Clark (Viola Davis) and Minny Jackson (Octavia Spencer) - who raised them and, currently, raise their own kids. Skeeter does what she does best. She defies the norm and confronts the African-American help with a proposition: talk to her and get their burdens off their chests. Clear their minds and answer the question: What is it like to raise a white person’s baby while yours go without?
Tell her their stories. With her contacts, she should be able to make the entire nation aware of Mississippi’s reluctance to change. While Aibellen and Minny are aware of the dangers, their will to change just how Mississippi operates becomes a stronger and force and, together, the three ladies – plus the wonderfully frantic and ditzy Celia Foote (Jessica Chastain) – begin to meet and make the changes they want to see happen in Mississippi.
The Help is wonderfully inspired collaboration between lifelong friends Kathryn Stockett, who wrote the novel, and writer/director Taylor. Stockett filled the pages of her book with characters that, while engaging, never once realized exactly what they were doing for the civil rights era. This certainly is a strength that Taylor kept because, while socially aware in the waters its wades into, the film never once becomes preachy. It’s a crowd-pleaser through and through.
Stone, with her frazzled look, is simply perfect for the part of the idealistic and - because of the absence of her own nanny, Constantine Bates (Cicely Tyson), and the failing health of her mother, Charlotte (Allison Janney) - somewhat socially awkward. Viola Davis’ wonderfully subtle performance and reaction brings the film the heaviness of the era and, when she is allowed to cut loose, brings a nice change to the atmosphere. Octavia Spencer’s facial expressions are a solid hoot. And, once Chastain is thrown into the mix, the chemistry is simply off the charts. You may even forget you are watching a movie.
There is a wonderful sense of time and place and character that maintains a constant throughout the film, too. The sets and costume designs are lush and realistic and of the time. It’s almost as if they are postmarked from the actual era. The Help breathes of history and the warmth from the massive fire that’s about to start, due to the civil rights era the film alludes to, is also felt. In a sense, what this film achieves – without schmaltz and without preaching – is massive.
So forgiving the film of its length, its lengthy and multilple endings, and slight narrative mishaps is easily done. It’s a film full of great female performances, including the scene-stealing Sissy Spacek as Hilly’s mother. Is it too soon to speak of Oscar season? I ask only because, in my opinion, The Help could easily fill two or three slots. Hands down.
It was William Faulkner, a Mississippi native and beloved American author, who wrote, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” Taylor’s wonderfully directed The Help reminds us of that fact with its wonderful insight into the passion of the human drama.
Words cannot express the importance and entertaining strength of The Help.
You have no excuse.
Go see this.
MPAA Rating: 
