'The Help' Shows Uncommon Perspective

Kathryn Stockett's popular 2009 novel The Help arrives this week with a faithful and very affecting big-screen adaptation. It's simplistic at times and flirts with manipulation, but it's also a deeply touching and well-acted film.

Set in early 1960s Mississippi, The Help tells the story of black maids who care for the children and homes of wealthy white families, encountering horrible cruelty and racism, even a century after the Civil War and a decade after Brown v. Board of Education. Aibileen (Viola Davis) and Minny (Octavia Spencer) are the two primary maids, while the third protagonist is Skeeter (Emma Stone), a young college graduate who decides to write a book about the maids and their experiences.

It's the most female of movies – for once, it's the male characters who are underdeveloped and largely inconsequential to the plot.

The film was written and directed, mostly competently, by Tate Taylor, a near-neophyte who had the great fortune of being the lifelong best friend of Stockett, the author of the book.

Now, a whole lot of Hollywood movies about the civil rights era – especially Mississippi Burning and Ghosts of Mississippi – have had the problem of being told primarily through white people's eyes, with white protagonists and primary concern with the white characters' journeys. The filmmakers of The Help seem very, very concerned with avoiding this problem, a sense I got from the deeply bizarre Entertainment Weekly article last week in which just about everyone associated with the film mentioned it.

Does it succeed in doing so? Partially. On the one hand, the two maid characters are the clear heart and soul of the film and the movie makes their story the most compelling aspect by a mile. But on the other hand, why do these women need someone to write a book for them?

Much more problematic is that, up until a couple of third-act shifts, the movie depicts all of its heroines as really, really good and all of its villains as very, very bad.

Like a lot of movies about civil rights, The Help makes one character the personification of all of racism's evils. In this case it's Hilly, played by Bryce Dallas Howard as the most evil human being who has ever lived.

She's racist, elitist, hypocritical, a bully, a bad mother, daughter, wife, boss and friend. She's practically a cartoon character, although the movie clearly has some crowd-pleasing fun building her up and then putting her through multiple humiliations in the third act.

Stone, playing apparently the only white liberal in all of Mississippi, continues her hot streak with a good enough turn to justify her character's existence. Allison Janney is wonderful as Stone's mother, while Jessica Chastain (the mother in ) brings surprising depth as an apparent bimbo housewife whose character takes a turn you won't expect.

But the movie truly belongs to Davis and Spencer, who give heartbreaking performances as women both concealing and ultimately sharing a lifetime worth of hurt. Both deserve serious Oscar consideration.

The Help is based on a beloved novel that I have not read, though it is a favorite of my wife and most of the women in my family; fans of the book will get to enjoy a deeply touching and at times heartbreaking adaption.

[Note: I read this week that Tyler Perry has endorsed and recommended the film. Which is ironic, since my first thought as the credits rolled was thankfulness that the film wasn't called Tyler Perry's The Help.]

The Help is now playing at:

• UA King Of Prussia Stadium 16 & IMAX, 300 Goddard Blvd., King of Prussia
• AMC Plymouth Meeting 12, 494 W. Germantown Pike, Plymouth Meeting
• Regal Marketplace at Oaks Stadium 24, 180 Mill Road, Oaks

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