The Help has two outstanding performances: one from Viola Davis and the other from Octavia Spencer. Beyond that, I felt like I was fed a slice of Minny Jackson's pie. When the emotional apex of the film is a young, prosperous and coddled white woman agonizing about whether to leave the racially charged Jackson for a glamorous life in the literary swirl of New York,you know that something has gone very wrong indeed. This film did not need Skeeter and the fact that she became its centre-piece, no matter how "enlightened" she may have been, is a subtle form of racism in its own right. The maids in The Help are more interesting, more compelling and much more deserving of the film's unwavering attention.
Structurally, the film bites off more than it can chew, or at least digest. There are too many characters, too many sub-plots, too much distraction from the two most important women in the story. Is it about Skeeter and the relationship with her old nursemaid (as nice as it is to see Cicely Tyson again)? How much ought we to really care about Skeeter's mother (the badly miscast Alison Janney)? Is it worth time and trouble to introduce and follow the Celia Foote character, who would have made for a pretty good lead character but in a different movie? And what are we to make of poor Sissy Spacek in her confounding, embarrassing and largely irrelevant role as the demented Missus Walters? All of these characters may have performed a valuable dramatic function in the novel, but in a two hour movie we just don't need them. The Help demonstrates one of the pitfalls to which inexperienced directors can fall prey in trying to adapt a novel to the screen.
All in all, The Help is the kind of film that you keep hoping will redeem itself. For my taste, I'd rather have had something with fewer ingredients and a lot more bite.
Structurally, the film bites off more than it can chew, or at least digest. There are too many characters, too many sub-plots, too much distraction from the two most important women in the story. Is it about Skeeter and the relationship with her old nursemaid (as nice as it is to see Cicely Tyson again)? How much ought we to really care about Skeeter's mother (the badly miscast Alison Janney)? Is it worth time and trouble to introduce and follow the Celia Foote character, who would have made for a pretty good lead character but in a different movie? And what are we to make of poor Sissy Spacek in her confounding, embarrassing and largely irrelevant role as the demented Missus Walters? All of these characters may have performed a valuable dramatic function in the novel, but in a two hour movie we just don't need them. The Help demonstrates one of the pitfalls to which inexperienced directors can fall prey in trying to adapt a novel to the screen.
All in all, The Help is the kind of film that you keep hoping will redeem itself. For my taste, I'd rather have had something with fewer ingredients and a lot more bite.