The Help

One of the few summer Oscar films has shown itself. It's called The Help, a film based on a novel has been admiringly compared to To Kill a Mockingbird. So, this film version has a lot to live up to.

Aibileen (Viola Davis) and Minny (Octavia Spencer) are black women in 1960's Jackson, Mississipi. They don't get much opportunities except being housekeepers for white families (or as the Southern folks call 'em, The Help). Their lives have been tough and nasty priss Hilly Holbrook (Bryce Dallas Howard), social leader of Jackson and Minny's ex-employer, plans to make them tougher.

Meanwhile, "Skeeter" Phelan (Emma Stone) has just got her first job at the Jackson Journal. Inspired by the abrupt retirement of her own longtime Help Constantine (Cicely Tyson), she decides to write a book "from the point-of-view of The Help." For this, she meets Aibileen and Minny and others willing to cross the line to get their views across.

Written and directed by first-timer Tate Taylor (an actor who recently starred in Winter's Bone), The Help is a greatly done dramedy. It avoids all the potential preechiness of Oscar-Bait melodrama while it doesn't let a few crude jokes pull it down. Yes, a few jokes were crude, but amazingly they were still funny.

What makes it work in its favor is its ensemble cast. As the leads, Davis, Spencer and Stone guide the film perfectly all the way through. The supporting actors are well-cast too, especially Sissy Spacek as Hilly's more liberal mother.

It's a film that'll definitely connect with older folks than with younger ones. But at least give it a try and hope you can get a good seat for the action.

Jethro's Note: My theater was PACKED. I had to sit near the bottom.