Movie Review: The Help
After putting it off for quite a long time, I finally got around to watching The Help. I don't really know why I had put it off for so long, especially since the only people that I ever saw trash it were members over at ONTD. I don't typically give a rat's ass what ONTD thinks considering they hate things I love and they love things I hate, but for some reason I really believed that what they were saying about the movie was true and that I just shouldn't watch it.
I was a fool.
Short summary: It's the 60s. It's Mississippi. I think you know where this is going. Privileged white people and their "colored" help doing everything for them, even taking care of their children. The main focus of the film is an Ole Miss graduate named Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan (Emma Stone) and her aspirations to be a journalist, as well as Aibileen Clark (Viola Davis), hard-working maid for the Leefolt family. Aibileen is friends with Minny Jackson (Octavia Spencer) who is employed by the wretched Hilly Holbrook (Bryce Dallas Howard)...at least until Hilly catches Minny using the inside toilet. After Minny is fired she finds a new job working for the well-meaning and bubbly Celia Foote (Jessica Chastain). To back track just a tad, Skeeter is back in town fresh from college and is hired at the local paper to take over a column about cleaning. She admittedly knows nothing about cleaning so she begins to converse with Aibileen about cleaning tips and tricks.After talking with her for a little while, Skeeter proposes an idea to Aibileen that she (Skeeter) write a book from the point of view of the help. Aibileen initially rejects the idea until after she gets a phone call from Minny after she's just been fired. It starts out as just the two of them, but Minny soon joins in (Minny also finds a new job working for Celia at this point). Another one of the maids is arrested for stealing a lost ring and attempting to pawn it which prompts several of the other maids to join in on Skeeter's book.
Thoughts: All the praise that Viola, Jessica, and Octavia have been getting is very well deserved. Aibileen was a sympathetic, strong, and well spoken woman just trying to make a living doing pretty much the only thing allowed for a black woman to do in the south in the 60s. Viola Davis' portrayal of her is sure to garner her an Oscar nod (and hopefully a win).
The movie was a tad long, and I felt that this could have been remedied if certain things had been cut out that played no part in the overall outcome of the story. Skeeter's subplot with her boyfriend went absolutely nowhere, especially since he dumped her near the end of the movie anyway. What was even the point? Obviously it would have happened in the book, but some things really could have been left on the cutting room floor.
Celia Rae Foote was kinda my favorite, lawl. Not gonna lie, it's not because of the name, but just because she was adorable. She didn't let the miscarriages and the cuntiness of the other women get to her. She stayed positive throughout the whole movie and that's why I loved her.
Celia Rae. Celia Shae. Coincidence? I highly doubt it.
My Rating: The acting was superb and while the story flowed well there were still some things that I feel should have been cut down. 4/5.