The Help - Review

I've been dreading this review for a while, but the hype and impact surrounding The Help has been so immense that I feel kind of compelled to give in and share my thoughts. Based on the best selling novel by Kathryn Stockett, The Help is a civil rights era dramedy set in 1960s Mississippi. In addition to being a well-received crowd pleaser and a likely Oscar contender, the film is also this year's movie people judge you for based on your opinion. Does it live up to it's hype or it just overblown Oscar bait.

As mentioned, The Help takes place in the town of Jackson, Mississippi in the early 1960s civil rights era. It focuses primarily on Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan (Emma Stone), an educated and ambitious 23-year-old who has just moved moved back to Jackson after graduating from college. Despite pressure from her family and peers to get married and start a family, Skeeter instead focuses on her writing career and lands a job with a local newspaper. During this time, she also starts her own ambitious writing project, a novel from the perspective of The Help, the underpaid, overworked, and discriminated African American maids to upper class suburban white families. After being repulsed by her peers' racist attitudes toward the help, especially the particularly despicable Hilly Holbrook (Bryce Dallas Howard) who was spearheading numerous Jim Crow-style bills and laws, Skeeter decides to interview various maids about their true feelings toward their employers. The first maid Skeeter approaches for an interview is the soft-spoken Aibileen Clark (Viola Davis). Due to the controversial nature of Skeeter's book, Aibileen is at first reluctant, but eventually agrees to the interview in order to express her true thoughts about society's treatment of minorities. The second to come forward is Aibileen's close friend Minny Jackson (Octavia Spencer), a sharp tongued maid whose tendency to speak her mind has landed her in trouble on more than one occasion. More follow suit, and soon Skeeter has a groundbreaking book to correspond with the changing times.

I'm just going to come forward with this... I've had reservations about this film since I first heard about it. Upon hearing the plot, it just seemed like another "White Savior" movie like 2009's The Blind Side (aka Sandra Bullock's vanity film). Also, I have not read the novel, just in case you were wondering. I'm judging this movie strictly on it's merits as a film. I don't know how well it follows the novel nor can I say whether it's better or worse. So, with that in mind, what do I think of The Help? In short, it's not horrible but it's not particularly good . Parts of it are solid, at times even excellent, but other parts are terrible misfires. It's a missed opportunity to say the least, for multiple reasons.

Most of hype for The Help was surrounding it's star studded ensemble cast. The large cast includes Emma Stone, Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, Bryce Dallas Howard, Cicely Tyson, Ahna O'Reilly, Sissy Spacek, Allison Janey, and many others. I'll start by saying this, despite all my reservations with this movie (and I have many), none of them are concerning the cast... for the most part at least.

Emma Stone leads as Skeeter, and while I have issues with her character and plotline (which I will get into later), I have to give credit to Stone herself. Stone's been on a roll lately, with well-received parts in movies like Superbad, Zombieland, Easy A, and others. A true talent to say the least, she does an admittedly solid job here in The Help. This is far from her best performance, but her easy going demeanor, natural comic timing, and decent dramatic range is overall a success. Not much to say about her other than that she does a solid job.

By far, the most discussed and easily the most memorable performance has to go do Viola Davis as Abilene. Believe the hype her folks... Davis is awesome in this role! Whenever she is on screen, she brings a commanding charisma to her role that is by far the most compelling performance in this film. Is it an Oscar worthy performance? Quite possibly. She's all but guaranteed to receive a nomination and should stand a good chance at winning too. By far, the best thing about this movie is Davis' performance, and could have easily carried this movie on her own.

The second most talked about performance would be Octavia Spencer as Minnie. While there's no competing with Davis for who gave the best performance, there's no denying that Spencer kills with her role as well. Her character has a few notable dramatic moments, but mostly serves as the comic relief, or at least one of the more humorous characters. She has a few different noteworthy scenes, the most memorable of which is the infamous pie scene (if you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about). An Oscar nomination seems all but guaranteed for Spencer as well, though a win is a little up in the air (though certainly possible).

The rest of the cast is all solid. The main antagonist, Hilly Hollbrook, is played by Bryce Dallas Howard. I've always had mixed feelings toward Howard, since she's shown some decent range though her choices in roles has been kind of hit and miss. Here, once again I have some mixed feelings. Her character is a nasty, dispicable, and thoroughly hateful person that drives most of the film's conflict. She's certainly one you love to hate, but I can't help but feel like Howard goes a little over the top at times. Still, she more or less accomplishes her role, so I'll give a pass. I won't critique everyone else, but rather say The Help is a thoroughly well acted movie.

So the acting is all great... no major complaints there. The story, on the other hand, is kind of a mess. Like I said before, the all-to-common "White Savior" story arch this film embraces has always been a major annoyance to me. According to The Help, the Civil Rights movement in Jackson wasn't kicked off by oppressed minorities standing up for their rights or inspiration from notable Civil Rights era figures like Martin Luther King or Rosa Parks, but rather the chick from Zombieland. It has a couple passing references to civil rights era figures, including a mention of the death of Medgar Evers, but that's about it. On top of all that, most of the black characters conform to stereotypes and cliches that have been present since the formation of the motion picture. For instance, there is a scene with Minny where she professes her love for fried chicken and how it makes life seem better... eek! It's kind of annoying, if not flat out nauseating, that The Help resorts to such an overdone storyline with borderline racist undertones. Unfortunately, the problems with the story go beyond simple concept. Even more frustrating is that it has moments of greatness that are barely utilized or explored.

Even if I could get behind the general idea of the white savior storyline, it still doesn't work in this movie because the movie's central plot (the one with Skeeter) just isn't all that interesting. Skeeter and Hilly aren't very interesting characters. They're both nothing more than generic archetypes (as are nearly every character in the movie) that conform to overdone cliches. Skeeter is your typical perfect enlightened do-gooder whose status as a writer makes me think her character represents a blatant author insert (though that's just a theory). There's also a couple go nowhere subplots about Skeeter's terminally ill mother as well as one about her getting a boyfriend. The one about Skeeter's mother, Charlotte (Alison Janey), is only barely mentioned and rarely developed aside for two or three scenes. The other, where she dates a senator's son named Stuart (Chris Lowell) gets hardly any attention as well. Maybe these plots were more relevant in the book, but here they're just deadweight that adds to the film's already long runtime.

Hilly is just your flat out person you love to hate. She's just another one-dimensional greedy, selfish, and prejudice "villain" without any real depth or subtext. I know people like her exist, and were probably fairly common in the respective time period, but it just doesn't make for a very interesting character. The rivalry between Skeeter and Hilly is predictable, dull, and despite the film's subject matter, kind of shallow. That said, Hilly's story did have a few of the movie's more enjoyable laughs, so that has to count for something.

The Help has two primary subplots that are significantly more interesting than the main plot. The first of which concerns Aibileen. Out of all the maids, she is the one who receives the most screen time and development. Her tragic backstory sets her character arch in motion and is the closest the time the film comes to being truly special. She mentions how maids make a meager living raising the children of wealthy white families while having little to no time to spend with their own. This is all the more tragic for Aibelene as her only son, one she barely saw, recently died. It's heart breakingly tragic story that gives the movie some real emotional weight. Only problem... IT'S BARELY DEVELOPED!!! Since the movie devotes so much time to Skeeter's storyline, Aibileen's is left in the shadows.

The second subplot that I got into was a friendship between Minny and her new employer. After Minny's acting out landed her in hot water with most of Jackson's residents, the only person that would hire her was Celia Foote (Jessica Christian), a sweet natured but naive and outcast resident of Jackson. At first glance, Celia comes off as any other of Jackson's wealthy white families... wealthy, married, and expecting their first child. That said, Celia's non-conformist ways and naive attitude have made her the outcast of the town. Both her and Minnie bond over their time together and form a friendship. It's a great relationship and sweet natured subplot that ties in well with the themes of prejudice and conformity.

It's not the worst movie I've ever seen, but I can't help but feel like the movie would have been substantially better had they dropped Skeeter's storyline. The Help would have been a far more compelling drama had it made Aibileen the movie's primary focus with the Minny/Celia story as the subplot. Both easily tie in with the film's themes of prejudice and civil rights, and could have been considerably compelling had they received more attention and development. Still, the film's acting is superb, and I'm almost tempted to give it a recommendation just on the strengths of the performances from Davis and Spencer. That said, due to the film's massively flawed script, I just can't bring myself to do that. It's out on DVD now, so I imagine anyone who wanted to see this movie already has, but those are my two cents. Still, I say skip it.

My Score: 2.5 out of 5!