"The Help" PG-13
The Help is based on a 2007 novel depicting the plight of a newspaper socialite columnist and a cluster of maids living in Jackson, Mississippi in the middle of the Civil Rights Movement, just prior to the assassination of Medgar Evers. It s not the next Beloved by any stretch, which was a little too graphic. Going for the crowd pleasing Oscar bunch, the story is watered down so that not once does the N word ever get uttered, in the South, in 1960s America. Sure the sets are pretty and the costumes are period, and the cars accurate, but hardly any of the actual emotion is. The story centers on Skeeter, a white socialite, and her black maid friends, who commune to write a book about the plight of the maids and their working conditions. The theme is similar to a white washed 1960s program done about the South with all the real danger and tribulation removed.
The most shocking and funny scene is when the socialite evil white lady is tricked into consuming a slice of poo pie. Had this really happened, the result would have been immediate arrest and imprisonment of the maid lady, even if it was funny. Suppose if Spike Lee directed this is would have been too socially conscious, but the director here is operating from a 2007 book, where the only info she has is from watching reruns of Father Knows Best, The Brady Bunch and the Andy Griffith Show on TV. When Evers is killed, there is no actual shouting of obscenities at the townsfolk who were of black persuasion, and there would have been, not just them running around scared. Some of them might even have died. Although the toilet scene on the lawn was funny also, because the socialite white lady hated germs, it didn't make any sense. Pranks would get the maids all kicked out, or sent to some horrible prison. It was like they were channeling Media's Family.
Trying to be crowd pleasing diminished the messages in the picture, but as a movie of that type, not taken seriously, it is all right. The original book was hard to follow. And how did the publisher even allow it to be printed in the movie? He knew it was a scandal sheet on Jackson, and everyone knew, so it was like, he just allows it? Anyway, if you ignore the watered down civil rights aspects of this and take it as a progressive Yankee Hollywood interpretation, fine. Just don't confuse it for Mississippi in the 1960s, but rather a modern washed over version.The main issue with it is parts of the South are still racist, and also that back then they were far worse about it, than depicted in the movie. It wasn't just that they segregated and treated blacks unfairly, they beat them and paid them almost nothing, and were constantly berating them, thinking them lower species, which is totally messed up, because they weren't white folks. That was not in there and if it was, it was watered down. The Klan would have rode into town and done terrible things to them. They would have had a lynching. Only implying it is to deny historic events happened. Granted it is not a historical story and the reviewer is not from the South, but still. If you're going to pretend like it's 1960s America it has to at least follow the theme. Racism is not some socialite or joking thing to just be mulled over at coffee houses and pie shops, with a fresh slice of chocolate poo pie. Meh.
So if you're looking for a fable, go see this. Best picture nominee, really? No. Well if nothing better happened, I suppose. It did push all the right buttons in terms of canned emotion and strife, someone dying, someone sinning, something happening, that Oscar likes. Best picture history, no. If you want to see accurate Oscar bait movies about messed up Southern places, Beloved and the Color Purple and Malcolm X are far better.
Review by Adam Browne
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