Review: THE HELP
Bottom Line: Certainly not flawless, but it does a good job of adapting the author’s style to the screen.
Based on the book by Kathryn Stockett, THE HELP is a poignant, moving film, peppered with light-hearted humor every now and then to spice up the otherwise sad plot, which ultimately reaches the point of being somewhat depressing. Emma Stone, who we know from EASY A and ZOMBIELAND, plays a great Skeeter Phelan, changing her accent to that of an aspiring Mississippian author for a two-hour-and-seventeen-minute long production; and Bryce Dallas Howard, who we can slightly recognize from THE VILLAGE and TERMINATOR SALVATION, portrays an even better Hilly Holbrook, a racist antagonist of the story. Compared to Kathryn Stockett’s debut novel from only two years before, this film is very, very close to being as good. It portrays the author’s view on racism in just the perfect light, and it is powered by great acting and cinematography that the author couldn’t create, making THE HELP a near-flawless production. Truly, it is the best way we can see what the rights of African-Americans were in 1962.
GRADE: A
When I saw The Help was #7 on your 2011 list, I was surprised. I’m not one of those people who hate it, but it didn’t even crack my top 40. There was no main stumbling block for me, but the whole Skeeter character and the film’s tendency to go for cheap humor both came close. My grade for it would be a B or B-.
Sometimes I, too, wonder if I had given The Help the grade it deserved. Maybe I did, and maybe it was because I loved the book so much, who knows, because my review is so short and so old. I really should revisit it, just as I should with everything else on my top 10 (The Artist I am definitely revisiting, because I preordered it already, and it comes out on June 26th), but I have crunched time. It’s possible I could do so during the summer, when I have more time.
If you decide to write a longer review, I’ll be interested in reading it for sure.
As you know, I’m not too crazy about it. My main criticism is that I felt as though the more important issues were at times relegated by subplots that didn’t quite fit into the African-American maids’ stories. They impact the tone in such a way that the picture felt uneven. I would love to have heard/seen more of the maids’ stories because whenever the movie focused on them, I thought it was fascinating. I was happy that Davis and Spencer got the recognition they deserved.
I can see how you didn’t enjoy this now. As I said in a previous comment, a second viewing just might do it. And this review is so short because it was originally on my August-October 2011 BlogSpot (total B.S., which is why I switched to WordPress), where I wrote carelessly. Anything that says “Review: FILM” is from that blog.