The Help (2011)

Content by Tony Macklin. Originally published on August 11, 2011 @ tonymacklin.net.

The Help is Mississippi-lite. It's certainly not Mississippi Burning (1988); it's Mississippi on Low Heat.

This doesn't mean it's not an entertaining movie: it is quite enjoyable. It just means it avoids authenticity -- it skirts (pun intended) the harshness and violence of the past.

The Help is one small step away from a successful tv sit-com. It's the Stepford Wives Move South. It's The Nanny with a Southern accent. [Thank goodness, it's not a nasal New York accent.]

Based on the best-selling novel by Kathryn Stockett, The Help is the story of Skeeter Phelan (Emma Stone), a recent graduate of Ole Miss, who returns home to a society in which she doesn't fit and doesn't want to.

Her past girl friends are members of the Junior League and live in a pastel world of privilege and racial superiority and disdain.

They all have Negro maids and nannies whom they willfully treat as possessions. The leader of the superficial pack is Hilly Holbrook (Bryce Dallas Howard), who is pie-eyed with power.

Skeeter gets a job with the local newspaper writing a cooking advice column, for which she needs help. She is able to enlist a nanny Aibileen (Viola Davis).

But when she sees how the Negro maids and nannies are treated she decides to ask Aibileen to aid her in writing about the real-life experiences of the help.

They are joined in their "dangerous" venture by Hilly's recently-fired cook Minny (Octavia Spencer), and they get cooking with Crisco.

The cast copes with roles that veer into contrivance. Among the moving moments, there are sequences that are false. When an attractive Emma Stone as Skeeter tells her nanny Constantine (Cicely Tyson) that, "Boys say I'm ugly," and that she wasn't invited to the prom, it's ridiculous. Maybe the book's heroine was plain, but Emma Stone is plainly lovely. She's cute and fresh-faced when she declares she's thought of as "ugly."

Viola Davis is terrific as Aibileen, and Octavia Spencer has a tours de force role as Minny. Jessica Chastain is appealing as the delusional, daffy woman who wants to be accepted by the Junior League women.

Sissy Spacek is delightful as Hilly's spirited mother, and diminutive Leslie Jordan is funny as the paper's editor. They add needed spirit and amusement.

The direction by Tate Taylor -- who also wrote the screenplay -- is pleasant. He avoids discomforting his audience.

Some sequences, such as the commode scene on the lawn, simply don't work.

And it's almost laughable to hear Bob Dylan singing on the soundtrack as though that will give the film a jolt of authenticity.

Taylor's touch basically is soft. Hard lives and painful times deserve a firmer grasp.

Can you coddle okra?