The Help
The Help takes the not so uncommon theme of civil rights era racial issues but gives it a fresh perspective. The film seems to be the first major piece done by director Tate Taylor and stars Emma Stone, Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, and Jessica Chastain. It tells the story of African American women who spend their lives as maids for white families. It depicts a lifestyle where the white parents don’t do much at all in regards to cooking, cleaning, or even raising their own kids. Meanwhile, the black women really don’t have any time to cook or clean for their own family because they spend so much time taking care of the white households.
There weren’t any poor performances but some stood out as more exceptional. Both Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer performed marvelously. Their characters are so different and yet they fit together so well. They display quite an emotional range as they move through the roller coaster of events that take place. Jessica Chastain was also quite good. She hasn’t been around in Hollywood for very long but if she continues to pump out performances like this then her career will no doubt continue to bloom. Emma Stone’s performance was satisfactory but it was hard to really get a good hold of her character. She awkwardly bounced between playing a giddy school girl, an out of place socialite, and a surprisingly serious journalist.
The biggest negative about the movie is that everything in it is fiction. As a movie, why does this matter? There is power in history and surely there is enough related history where we could have gotten more truthful and historical accounts. Films that discuss previous human atrocities are always more powerful because you know they are based on real people. For example, think of the Tuskegee Airmen. Telling their story through film or other media is powerful. Now lets imagine a new movie comes out based on some sort of fictional equivalent of the Tuskegee Airmen. Even if the story they go through is very close to what actually happened, it doesn’t make up for the fact that it is still completely made up. I wish that this could have been a film based on a book written by a young journalist decades ago about Aibileen Clark and Minny Jackson.
With that being said, it still is a very good film and there are still lessons to be learned. It was actually much better than I had anticipated. It is very clever in that it not only found a new perspective to present on the civil rights era, but that it also did it so well. The Help is emotionally gripping, mentally stimulating, and refreshing and you would do well to see it.
