The Living Proof

"The Help"

Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan (Emma Stone) is an eager, young woman fresh out of college ready to start her career as a journalist.  Skeeter comes from Jackson, Mississippi at a time when the civil rights movement is full swing.  She does manage to snag a job at the local paper answering questions for a column about housekeeping.  Skeeter's friends and family all have African American maids who do all the cooking, cleaning, and child rearing.  She goes to Aibileen Clark (Viola Davis) for advice.  Aibileen has been a maid for many years and has raised her share of white children while their mothers just stand idly by and can't be bothered to do any sort of child rearing themselves.  Skeeter then gets the idea of wanting to tell the stories of the oppressed maids.  Any and all sufferings, sorrows, and sacrifices they’ve had to make to get to where they are now will be put down on paper and turned into a novel.  This is their story in their own words.  It's time for their voices to be heard.

The Help is as an excellent piece of entertainment with a good history lesson to go along with it.  The film deals with the very turbulent times this country was in during the 1960's.  While it does bring up some of the big picture issues that were going on at the time they are not the main focus of the feature.  Those issues perhaps would make this film out to be too broad on a societal scope.  Instead it focuses on particular (fictitious) individuals and how everything is affecting them in their world.  This is helpful because it allows us to become intimate with the subject matter and have characters we can sympathize with rather than having the film turn into a documentary.

The Help features many fine performances from an almost entirely female cast.  Stone and Davis are solid as the leads.  You can tell just by the looking at Aibileen's face that she has endured a ton of hardships in her lifetime.  Davis plays a character that has had some real tragedies in her life but is able to show a great deal of restraint given the heated racial climate she happens to be living in.  Jessica Chastain and Octavia Spencer both churn out energetic supporting performances as some real firecracker women.  They are the most fun to watch.  Bryce Dallas Howard plays one of those uppity, Bible belting, snooty, thinks she's better than everyone else, sort of characters down to a tee.  All the actresses in this picture are written so strong and powerful which is something you rarely get to see in today's cinema.

Aibileen introduces herself to us by directly addressing the camera. Right from that opening sequence, you can tell The Help is going to be another one of those films that has a great theatrical quality about it.   There are many examples where there are only two or three characters sharing the screen which lets us really enjoy what each actress is bring to the scene.  The Help will make you laugh out loud, touch your heart, and even bring you to tears.  Most importantly though, you be entertained.  A well written adapted screenplay, real performances, and imperative societal themes bind this film together.  The Help is kind.  The Help is smart.  The Help is important.