Review: The Help

Review: The Help

Rating: ***1/2

Nonna's Rating: $$$

Rotten Tomatoes: 73%

Audience: 93%

I actually liked it better than the book. I was prepared for disappointment, but the movie surprised me -- primarily because of a very powerful performance by Viola Davis as Aibileen, a woman who suffers with dignity. There is already Oscar buzz about Davis's performance. She doesn't have to say anything to convey the hurt, anger, and sorrow she feels as a black woman serving the needs of spoiled, clueless, racist white women in Jackson, Mississippi in the early 1960s.

Some have criticized this film (and the book) because it doesn't portray the mindless, vicious violence perpetrated on blacks in the south fifty years ago. I can't agree with that criticism. That's not the kind of vile racism this film depicts. Instead, it illustrates the subtle, genteel racism of privileged white women who would never think of pointing a gun at one of their servants. Instead, they denigrate these women, assume they're diseased, accuse them of thievery, exploit them financially, deny them their families, prevent them from getting an education, give them unlimited access to children they've come to love, and treat that relationship as meaningless. And all for only one reason: they can. Yes, it's as if the 13th Amendment had never been passed.

There are funny moments in this movie. There are little triumphs, but, when all is said and done, there remains injustice masquerading as Christianity. All in all, it's horrific.

Octavia Spencer as Minnie delivers a fine performance as a woman who is mad as hell and won't take it any more. Emma Stone (Skeeter) is the amanuensis of this group of Southern black maids poised to step into the complex second half of the 20th century.

Movies have been pretty horrible this summer. Along comes one worth watching -- and talking about.

Nonna's Rating

$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening price

$$$ = Worth paying the Matinee price

$$ = Worth a rental

$= Wait for cable

# = Skip it