Disney's The Help [DVD]

I just got so angry for the 'help' in this film. A real expose of the Deep South and America's shameful treatment even into what we would consider an enlightened era the 60's. Octavia Spencer and Viola Davis are truly the reason this film is so successful as they hold up a mirror to a disgraceful history with passion, humour and empathy. Great story of resilience and courage and certainly made me think. One word 'Pie'...keep that word in your mind when you watch this fabulous film.

Great film

Love the plot and the characters are so perfectly cast and acted out. The layering of the movie makes it one I want to watch over and over! Ending was a tad sad but still really good..

Good

Superub writing and acting. Love it. Keep re- watching the shorts of FB!

Good film, great price and arrived quickly.

After graduating from college, Eugenia (Skeeter) Phelan (Emma Stone) returns to her home town of Jackson, Mississippi and is shocked to find that Constantine the black maid for worked for her family for many years and practically raised her, has left without saying goodbye.Whereas the rest of her friends went to college to find husbands, Skeeter remains single and completes a degree in journalism. In order to pursue her ambition to become a writer she gets a job writing a domestic column for a local newspaper. In order to find material to include she sets about taking tips from the black maids who work in the town (known as 'the help').Prompted both by her conversations with the help and her bewilderment as to Constantine's departure, Skeeter begins to notice the poor treatment and racist behaviour white families show towards the black maids they employ. Although the Black Civil Rights Movement is growing, racism and racial segregation remain rife and unchallenged in Jackson. Amongst the worst offenders is her best friend Hilly Holbrook (Bryce Dallas Howard), who under the false pretence that black people carry different diseases to white, has put a proposal to the governor that separate toilets for 'the help' should be provided in every household. This takes Skeeter in a whole new direction; to write a book from the perspective of the help exposing how badly they are treated by the white families they work for. Her first informant is a maid named Aibileen (Viola Davis) who works for her friend Elizabeth (and serves as the film's narrator). Aibileen is later joined by fellow maid Minny (Octavia Spencer). Minny is Hilly's former maid who was fired for using the indoor toilet and not going into hurricane weather to use the 'help's toilet outside.I will not reveal the rest of the story. Needless to say The Help is one the most powerful films I have seen for a long time. Before I watched it I had only a limited knowledge and appreciation of the extent of the civil and institutional racism which was commonplace in the USA in the mid 20th Century. Today the status of black citizens in the USA has rocketed, the election of Barrack O Bama in 2008 being a strong example. However the legacy of their mistreatment continues to blight their lives. Films including The Help serve to illustrate how such attitudes can be diluted but remain ingrained within American society.

The story of "The Help" might not be the most harrowing, most awful, most difficult story of racial prejudice in the US but is a story from a domestic setting, a story of women. So few stories of women are told. I loved the book, I loved the film but didn't like the changes.Not fine art but a story and an interesting story. A good film. Sometimes moving the focus of an important time in history like the civil rights movement to something more domestic and mundane makes it more real. The big moments take time to filter to real people.There are some fine and real performances in this from Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer and Emma Stone. I find it perplexing that Amazon chooses to list this as "The Help" Emma Stone (Actor, Primary Contributor), Bryce Dallas Howard (Actor, Primary Contributor), Tate Taylor (Director). What happened to the black actresses?The thing I found sad about the adaptation is Constantine's story was rushed. Her daughter was very different in the book and had more of a significant part in humiliating Skeeter's mother which although was worse than portrayed (for the time) made Skeeter's mother much less sympathetic as a character.The other sad thing is that I'm really not sure how I feel about the story. I don't know how I feel about the author and her inspiration. Bad things have been claimed which you hope not to be true because you want the story to be pure and full of hope but nothing in reality is like that.A good film. A film with a message and perhaps it is the latter which makes it difficult but a good film nonetheless.