Many critics have questioned Kathryn Stockett's ability to speak for "the help." ), but she thinks it's absolutely crazy. Short on style and flashy technique, The Help on film compensates with genuine emotional force. Solid point. This is partly because it is written by a white author who narrates in the black voices of Minny and Aibileen, and partly because of the way white voices in the U.S. continually tell the story of the Civil Rights Movement from a limited point of view. The gall of Stockett, a white woman from Jackson, Mississippi, to think she could get inside the heads of black maids serving white folks during the early 1960s. But where injustices persist, that's a flawed idea at best. Both women are using writing to create positive change in their communities. The actors are sublime. Skeeter also offers Aibileen five dollars for every article she has helped with, but Aibileen refuses the money, explaining that Miss Leefolt would not like it and that Aibileen will not help Skeeter with her book. Aibileen bites her tongue when her employer (Ahna O’Reilly) ignores her own baby girl and Aibileen’s feelings when she’s relegated to the new bathroom outside. The Help tries to understand all of them. It’s Skeeter’s job to first liberate herself from the bigoted codes passed on through generations, including her mother (Allison Janney) and Skeeter’s own card-dealing, role-playing girlfriends. Aibileen writes her own story and works with Skeeter to edit the other women's stories. The actors are sublime. Skeeter leaves embarrassed. Related• The 12 Must-See Summer Movies — Plus Five Unheralded Gems and Five More to Skip• The Best and Worst Movies of 2011 — So Far. Dismayed by the racist Home Help Sanitation Initiative … Octavia Spencer, left, stars as Minny Jackson and Viola Davis as Aibileen Clark in "The Help." Miss Elizabeth Leefolt, the 23-year-old mother, feels little love for her child, even avoiding any … The secret ingredient she pops in a pie for her racist boss (Bryce Dallas Howard, all-stops-out) earns its name as the “Terrible Awful.” The fired Minny is forced to take a job with white-trash social outcast Celia Foote, who could have been a bombshell cliché if the incandescent Jessica Chastain (The Tree of Life) didn’t play her with such warmth and feeling. The book is narrated by three very different women; Minny, a … Want more Rolling Stone? Start with the brilliant Viola Davis (Doubt) as Aibileen Clark, the housekeeper who’s helped raise 17 white children for various families but is still reeling from the accidental death of her only son. Send us a tip using our anonymous form. Short on style and flashy technique, The Help on film compensates with genuine emotional force. Aibileen’s best friend, Minny Jackson (an award-caliber performance from Octavia Spencer), isn’t one to hold back. Aibileen has asked 31 other maids but they are all too scared to help with the project. S et in Jackson, Mississippi in the early 1960s, 'The Help' by Kathryn Stockett shows the peak of racial segregation. Both women (and the other contributors) are getting equal amounts of money for Help. © Copyright 2020 Rolling Stone, LLC, a subsidiary of Penske Business Media, LLC. Skeeter sends Aibileen's chapter to Elaine Stein in New York, who calls Skeeter to say that the material is good but there needs to be at least 12 maids' stories to make a book and it needs to be done in six months. The Help, Kathryn Stockett's debut novel, tells the story of black maids working in white Southern homes in the early 1960s in Jackson, Mississippi, and of Miss Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan, a 22-year-old graduate from Ole Miss, who returns to her family's cotton plantation, Longleaf, to find that her beloved maid and nanny, Constantine, has left and no one will tell her why. Aibileen gives Minny strange news: Skeeter is writing a book about the experiences of black maids in Mississippi, and Aibileen is going to help her by telling her own story - and she wants Minny to do so too. It is August 1962 in Jackson, Mississippi and Aibileen Clark, a 53-year-old African American housemaid, narrates her experience working in white households.She has taken care of seventeen white children in her life and now she helps raise one more: the 2-year-old Mae Mobley Leefolt. It could have been a disaster. “But trying to understand,” Stockett wrote, “is vital to our humanity.”. Skeeter longs to pursue a career in writing that will take her beyond the stifling confines of her refined white southern society. The dialect (“Yes, ma’am,” “sho-nuff,” “Law have mercy”) probably helped Stockett get more than 60 rejections from literary agents. Kathryn Stockett’s debut novel riled a few critics. We want to hear from you! But her book, published by Penguin in 2009, touched a raw nerve that led to bestsellerdom and a frank admission from Stockett about how she could never truly understand what it felt like to be a black woman in Mississippi at the dawn of the civil rights movement. And the tale written on the eloquent faces of Davis and Spencer speaks to the heart. The film’s catalyst is Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan (Emma Stone), a recent graduate of Ole Miss looking to spark a career in journalism by getting Aibileen and Minny to confide their feelings about working for white families in a changing South. The Help has enjoyed a surge of popularity on Netflix, perhaps owing to its commitment to the idea that the personal matters most. That’s what makes The Help an exhilarating gift. The idea is exciting to Minny (finally, a chance to speak her mind and to tell the truth! 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The Help focuses on three women in 1960s Jackson Mississippi: Aibileen, who works as a nanny and housekeeper for the Leefolt family; Minny, an outspoken maid; and Skeeter, a recent college graduate. Aibileen takes over the Miss Myrna column when Skeeter moves to New York. Although the story is about white and black … Skeeter's mother buys her a peculiar machine called the Magic Soft & Silky Shinalator, which is supposed to tame Skeeter's curly hair for her date … A deeply touching human story filled with humor and heartbreak is rare in any movie season, especially summer. And the film version of The Help, directed and written – at Stockett’s request – by the relatively inexperienced Tate Taylor (her friend from Jackson), does full justice to that intention. It’s an intimate epic, not a historical one. Epic, not a historical one as Minny Jackson ( an award-caliber performance from Octavia Spencer, left stars! 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