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2011, 08-16:
Review of film: “THE HELP”
The situation regarding CIVIL RIGHTS is, in a lot of ways, very DIFFERENT today than they were in the middle of the 20th Century...
... This 146-minute PG-13 movie takes us back to MISSISSIPPI around the 1950’s. Based on a popular book, it tells the story of various families living around Jackson, concentrating on well-to-do WHITE ones & the much poorer BLACK people who often worked as servants around the whites’ homes...
... “Skeeter” (Eugenia) Phelan (EMMA STONE) grew up in a prosperous white family, with her mother Charlotte (ALLISON JENNEY) & her dad Robert (BRIAN KERWIN)...
... Allison is always fretting about the way Emma is still SINGLE, & worries about her not making more “efforts” towards attracting a husband (& tries to “PUSH” her to go out more)...
... As was typical in such wealthy families, Emma was often raised by a black nanny named Constantine Jefferson (CICELY TYSON), & was very ATTACHED to her...
... She was very upset when Cicely suddenly “disappeared” from the household some time around when Emma was away at college...
... Emma’s goal was to be a WRITER, &, shortly after she returns HOME from college, we see her eagerly trying to get a job at a local NEWSPAPER...
... Although it’s not quite what she was “hoping” for, wanting to get “started” on her career, Emma accepts a job to be the writer of a column about giving household tips, which she must do under a pseudonym...
... Emma’s old best friend in town is Hilly Holbrook (BRYCE DALLAS HOWARD), a “social butterfly” who’s very “pushy” in the way she tries to RUN things in her clique of wealthy women...
... Even Bryce’s mother, Missus Walters (SISSY SPACEK) appears pretty “FED-UP” with the way Bryce keeps trying to “MANIPULATE” things in her crowd...
... Bryce is quite RACIST (as many such women were at the time), acting too “busy” (= disinterested) to actually take care of her OWN children. That job is left to her black housekeeper named Minnie Jackson (OCTAVIA SPENCER), a great cook who loves the kids and vice versa...
... But, while diligently devoted Viola is great with the kids and cooking & the like, Bryce regularly treats her as a “LESSER” human being:
... Bryce feels her kids could be “hurt” if Viola ate from the “white” tableware or used the same washroom as white people, & insists on her using an “ISOLATED” toilet she had specially built inside her house...
... Yes, it was the time of supposedly “SEPARATE-but-equal” treatment in the American south, which usually focused on just the “separate” part: Blacks had to use DIFFERENT entrances to places like movie theaters, different washrooms, separate DRINKING fountains, etc...
... The blacks (naturally) HATED such treatment-- but they were vastly in the underclass economically, & stoically felt they had to “TOLERATE” such dehumanizing treatment to keep their jobs & the like...
... Another friend of Emma’s is Jolene French (ANNA CAMP), who – as the “flighty” wife of a wealthy man – meekly submits to what BRYCE tells her to “do” in life...
... She seems ill-equipped to raise her sweet-but-overweight young daughter. Anna eagerly leaves all the work to her housekeeper, Aibileen Clark (VIOLA DAVIS), who happily tries to give the put-down youngster a feeling of love & self-confidence...
... After getting her new newspaper job, Emily decides to attend a regular gathering of Bryce’s regular CARD-playing group meeting at Anna’s home...
... Since they hadn’t seen Emma since she’d returned from college, those women -- plus Elizabeth Leefolt (AHNA O’REILLY), Mae Mobley (ELEANOR HENRY), etc. --
greet Emma EXCITEDLY...
... Emma talks about the household-tips column she’d be writing, & asks permission to talk to VIOLA to get some IDEAS for it. After in-effect “checking” with BRYCE to see if she had any “problems” with that, Anna said that seemed to be OK...
... As they’re playing cards, Viola chances to overhear the women talking about their “society”, including INSULTING comments about their black help...
... At one point during one of their games, BRYCE say she’d gone so far as to draft a “Home Health Sanitation Initiative”, wherein she wanted the City Council to adopt a law REQUIRING EVERY white house to have a SEPARATE bathroom for their “help”...
... Later in the film, Bryce keeps “reminding” Emma that she’d like her to get her newspaper to PUBLISH her “Home Health Sanitation” Initiative, to try to drum-up “support” for it... Emma keeps coming up with “EXCUSES” to DELAY doing that...
... Viola gives some housekeeping ideas to Emma, & does so willingly because she’s clearly the most “OPEN-MINDED” & NON-racist of the young women...
... At her own home, Bryce keeps in-effect PUTTING-DOWN OCTAVIA... She’s livid when she thinks Octavia had used a “WHITE” toilet in her home (because she’d NEEDED such a place immediately), & FIRES Octavia for her supposed “transgression”...
... Because Bryce had “BAD-mouthed” Octavia to her “crowd”, Octavia couldn’t find a NEW job-- which she deeply needed for her kids & to keep her abusive husband “away” from her...
... Desperate for work, Octavia reluctantly agrees to talk to a woman Bryce HATES & purposely avoids named Celia Foote (JESSICA CHASTAIN)...
... Jessica was talked about as being a “loose” woman (mainly because she got with an EX-boyfriend of Bryce’s), & she was NON-racist, which made her in-effect “forbidden” to Bryce’s group...
... Octavia found Jessica was very socially awkward, TERRIBLE at running a home (especially cooking-wise), & sometimes “peculiar” in her flustered & “DITSY” behavior...
... Jessica makes clear she needs Octavia’s help-- but wants to keep her hiring a SECRET from her new husband Johnny (MIKE VOGEL) who she fears might not like the fact that she’d been employed & that it’s not really Jessica who’s initially going to be making the good FOOD she’d be offering him...
... Octavia finds Jessica’s behavior (such as hugging her & the like) very “STRANGE” overall-- but, she seems to be SINCERE, + Octavia greatly needs the job offered... So, she arrives & leaves early, in a “secretive” fashion...
... Emma becomes deeply DISENCHANTED with the behavior of Bryce & her “crowd”, & comes up with an idea to try to write a book from the point-of-view of the BLACK help that white women employ in the area...
... Emma contacts a potential PUBLISHER in New York about her idea... But, the editor there, Elaine Stein (MARY STEENBURGEN), says she DOUBTS Emma would be able to get cooperation in such a venture...
... As Mary explains to her: “No maid is ever going to tell you the TRUTH. That’s a hell of a RISK to take in Jackson, Mississippi!...”
... But, Emma wants to TRY to write the book... She furtively contacts VIOLA about her idea, but she’s very fearful about cooperating on it... But, certain circumstances (such as the way Octavia was fired & all) convince her to TRY to offer some “HELP-ful” information...
... Bryce keeps becoming more & more “demanding” of others, which upsets Emma & the various black housekeepers all the more...
... Because Mary said she needs MORE than just Viola’s stories, Emma tries to convince OCTAVIA to add some of her recollections...
... Octavia’s extremely LEERY of doing that, but finally agrees to do so-- including giving some “news” about something she’d done to get “back” at BRYCE...
... It was a thing so “shocking”, she feels Bryce would go out-of-her-way to avoid admitting it was JACKSON that the book was “set” in, for fear of having the “shameful” episode concerning her “SPREAD-AROUND”...
... Will Jessica’s “surprise” be revealed about employing Octavia?... What exactly is the “secret” Octavia was keeping about BRYCE?... Would that secret get “OUT”, &, if so, what could be “DONE” about a “reaction” to it?...
... Would any OTHER housekeepers tell THEIR “stories” to Emma?... What shocking info will Emma learn concerning the truth of CICELY’S leaving as her mother’s employee?...
... What will be the “reaction” to the release of Emma’s BOOK in the form that it comes out?... Will there be any “BACKLASH” about it, & if so, WHAT will it be?...
...There has been some “to-do” over the fact that this movie about black help was made partly by WHITE people, with the idea that their “outlook”may not be “VALID” for such a narrative... I find that a RIDICULOUS contention about the film:
... Thanks in part to the way it helps build-up a story about unexpectedly growing trust & FRIENDSHIPS, this is a finely THOUGHT-provoking movie...
... I know that some of the segregated attitudes we “see” in this movie about the SOUTH also existed in some areas of the NORTH... But, I also know there were some good-hearted & CARING people who could be found in ALL areas:
... I well remember stories told to me by fine black character actress IRMA P. HALL (“BIG MAMA” in “SOUL FOOD”, & the lady Tom Hanks tries to kill in “THE LADYKILLERS” -- + playing the role of a MAID in various movies):
... Irma’s own mother JO worked as a MAID for a white family in the Chicago area, which treated her very kindly. At times, she brought Irma along to the job, & she ALSO was treated wonderfully...
... Irma thus grew up thinking basically GOOD things about people of ALL colors, & initially thought it “strange” that anyone would “expect” that she’d be “fearful” to go into “white” areas, since she herself had always been treated just fine...
... She eventually learned that not everyone was so lucky or that ALL people treated others with such a GENEROUS nature... But it helped “condition” her to the idea that, we’re all of just ONE basic race—“the HUMAN race!...”
... I was reminded of that by this film. It comes across as really FINELY-told, with a number of excellent performances (especially by Emma, Bryce, Jessica, & particularly Viola & Octavia)...
... The times, they were a-CHANGING – sometimes not as much as many wanted, or always in the “way” people hoped...
... But you’ll recognize both a deep level of “PROGRESS” that’s been made, & a reminder of how much MORE needs to be done in certain areas of civil rights for all...
... This movie has serious sides, FUNNY elements, and an “UPLIFTING” message... Accordingly, I’m rating this enjoyable film at 8.5 out of 10 stars...
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