Tuesday Movie Review: The Help

This past Saturday, Erika, Jackie and I, along with two women from church (Ms. Claudette and Ms. Mary Ann) went to see The Help. I reviewed the book here on The Chronicles of Nat back in November of last year. I had borrowed the book from Ms. Claudette and absolutely loved it. It was one of the best books I have read in a long while and I was really looking forward to the movie coming out.

Jackie read the book about a month or so ago and then Erika bought the book last week and read it in all of two days. It’s that good, people. If you haven’t read it yet, please do. It is such a great read!

We went to the matinee and I got a large popcorn. While Jackie ate a little of it, I’m not embarrassed to admit that I did the majority of the popcorn eating. It was exceptionally good for some reason. We settled in to our seats in a theater that was full of mostly women. There may have been a man or two sprinkled in here and there.

The movie was really great, ya’ll. I would recommend this movie as much as I would recommend the book, but please do read the book beforehand if you can. After all, as you probably know, I’m a firm believer in book reading before movie seeing.

This film followed the book quite closely as best I can remember. Erika, who had most recently read the book, agreed that it was close to the book. There were a few things that were left out, but nothing that took away from the story. The book is obviously more detailed, but, as I’ve said before, if the movie makers got every detail of the books correct we’d be sitting in a theater for hours on end. So, I would say they hit the nail on the head when it came to turning this wonderful book into a big screen attraction.

The acting in the movie was quite remarkable as well. Bryce Dallas Howard did a remarkable job as the evil Hilly Hollbrook, Emma Stone was delightful as Skeeter, and Octavia Spencer stole scene after scene as the sass-mouthed Minnie. The movie’s best performance, however, may have been by Viola Davis as Aibileen. Jackie said she should be nominated for an Oscar for her performance and I would have to say I agree. All of these women as well as the rest of the cast did a fantastic job of portraying their characters and on more than one occasion had the audience in tears.

Don’t think this movie is just for women, though. An older man I attend church with said he also saw it last week and he loved it. So, load up your husbands and boyfriends and get down to the theater to see this very powerful, heartwarming and moving film. It’s definitely one worth spending your $10 on.