The Help
The Help is one of those melodramas that most filmgoers have seen a million times before. It’s glossy and the heroes and villains are clear. There is little ambiguity and not much by way of moral wrestling. Perhaps worst of all, this 2011 film is remarkably and unfortunately safe.
I haven’t read the Kathryn Stockett novel that The Help is based on, but I’ve seen an awful lot of films exactly like Tate Taylor’s adaptation. It’s hard to imagine a cliché that isn’t used to full effect and sadly the characters are drawn from the same hackneyed cloth. Even with the efforts of some really good performers, The Help isn’t anywhere near the movie it should be.
Aibileen Clark (Viola Davis) is a black maid who works for a white family in 1960s Mississippi. There are Jim Crow laws designed to keep whites and blacks apart, but they don’t stop Skeeter (Emma Stone) from asking Aibileen for some advice in writing a newspaper column. Skeeter is the good white woman, a progressive with a solid attitude toward white/black relations. She scoffs at the racist attitudes of her friends and is our easy-to-like hero.
Then there’s Minny Jackson (Octavia Spencer), another black maid. She’s a “difficult” woman because she’s outspoken, but luckily she’s a hell of a cook. She works for a rich couple and bonds with Celia (Jessica Chastain). The movie’s easy-to-hate villain is the roaring and squealing racist Hilly Holbrook (Bryce Dallas Howard), a roaring witch of a woman who wants whites and blacks to use separate bathrooms.
The Help essentially moves through the characters and their entanglements. Skeeter starts to write a book and the maids want to share their experiences in it. The book is called, of course, “The Help” and it enables the black women to get their stories out incognito. There are some funny moments when the women are entering stories into the book, but most of it just drags on and on.
Racism in America, especially in the 1960s, has been the subject of many films. It is an ugly segment in the history of the country and it continues to haunt to this day, despite claims by some to the contrary. The trouble with The Help is that it doesn’t treat the issues with any complexity or degree, giving us characters that come at us with overtness. It may be fun to see the racist get her due via pie, but a more comprehensive analysis of her ilk would’ve been more invigorating.
The Help, because it is so easy to digest, is the sort of mainstream pleasure cruise that convinces some filmgoers that they’re seeing something reflective and edifying. Those who’ve seen more films and know more history will be disappointed, however, because this should’ve been so much more.
Along with being remarkably clichéd and thin on details, The Help is overflowing with superfluous subplots. Skeeter’s relationship with a boyfriend is purposeless, as are some of Celia’s imbroglios with innumerable socialites (although seeing Chastain on screen, particularly in one red dress with a view, isn’t ever a bad thing).
The Help is this year’s safe Oscar nomination. It features an awful lot of good performances, but the complete picture is the epitome of Hollywood-glazed, histrionic fluff. It does little to delve into such essentials as characters, motivations and emotions, choosing the easiest road possible to the inevitable smiling payoff. Cue music.
Trailer:
