The Help

And as the day approaches when the clocks will spring forward into Summer Time, here are my notes for our last screening before the AGM in June:

The Help

USA 2011                    146 minutes

Director:                      Tate Taylor

Starring:                        Allison Janney, Bryce Dallas Howard, Emma Stone, Jessica Chastain, Mike Vogel, Octavia Spencer, Sissy Spacek, Viola Davis

 Awards and Nominations

• Won Oscar for Best Supporting Actress (Octavia Spencer).
• Three Oscar Nominations including Best Picture, Best Actress (Viola Davis) and Best Supporting Actress (Jessica Chastain).
• Won BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress (Octavia Spencer)
• Four BAFTA Nominations including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actress (Viola Davis) and Best Supporting Actress (Jessica Chastain).
• Won Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
• A further 37 wins and 46 nominations.

“Let's clear those caveats out of the way first.  The Help is a broad southern melodrama that implicitly frames the push for racial equality as the tale of oppressed African-Americans who are given their voice by a lone white do-gooder.  Its moral universe is rendered in bright cartoonish strokes while its feisty journalist heroine is conveniently allowed to float free from the mores of a culture (specifically 1960s Mississippi) she has lived in all her life. Viewed as an airbrushed, Dettol-heavy fairytale, however, it's rousingly effective.”

Xan Brooks

Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan (Emma Stone) is a young white woman who returns to her home in 1960s Mississipp, during the Civil Rights era with aspirations of a career in journalism.  She befriends Abileen Clark (Viola Davis) and Minny Jackson (Octavia Spencer), two black maids and) and decides to write a controversial book from their point of view (their white employers refer to them merely as "the help"), exposing the racism they are faced with as they work for white families.

 The film is based on Kathryn Stockett’s best-selling novel which was rejected by 60 literary agents before publication when it then spent more than 100 weeks on The New York Times Best Seller List.  Thee book has strong autobiographical echoes of Stockett’s own life as Stocket was brought up in Mississippi by a black housekeeper and she based the character of Minny on her friend Kathryn Stockett’s who subsequently won many awards, including an Oscar and a BAFTA for her portrayal.  

The film is directed by Tate Taylor from his own screenplay.  He was a school friend of Stockett and he optioned the film rights to her book before it was even published.  His first film as director was a low budget comedy called Pretty Ugly People; with The Help he managed to secure Oscar nominations for three of the actresses and a win for Octavia Spencer.

Here's the trailer: