Saw 'The Help'

[snow leopard27]

Both the wife and I thought they did a good job with the movie.

I didn't think the angst & fear that the black maids felt about participating in the project came across as well in the film as it did in the book, but that is likely a problem with any film adaptation in that 2 hours is just not enough time to build up the tension that a book can convey.

I found the scene towards the end that reveals mystery behind Constantine's dismissal very moving; thrown out after 29 years with one family, raising the daughter, for what seems today something so trivial.

All the major characters are female, so it does have a bit of a "chick flick" feel, but I still really like it and would give it a thumbs up

 

[bedhead]

Cicely Tyson (Constantine) puts many/most actresses to shame. If feel if there were more roles for black actresses she would be equal with the Meryl Streeps. That scene and the expression on her face at the door will be the one that sticks with me the most.

On 20/20 or 48 hours, one of those type of shows- a month or 2 ago, they actually reunited some of the 'Help" with the children, now adults they had helped raise. The story of the 'Help" telling the little girl every day that she was special, she was smart, and kind? was true and those 2 were reunited. At that moment I knew if they could re-capture stories like that on screen, it would be an awesome movie.

Of course, 2-slice Hilly wasn't bad either! (that was Ron Howards daughter, who did a great job)

I don't really feel it is a chick flick, and I am a chick, rather a slice of when times were very different, and not too long ago. I think men would enjoy it as well.

 

[HornHuskerDad]

I'll add a plus vote for this one. If you are old enough to remember the 50s/60s in the Deep South, you'll appreciate this one. If you're not that old, you should see it to get a flavor of the Deep South in the 50s/60s. I can still recall going into Sears and seeing drinking fountains labeled "White" and "Colored."

HHD

 

[AustinBat]

I walked out of the theater thinking "I just saw the Academy Award winner",

 

[huisache]

You didn't have to go to the deep south to see that kind of stuff; it was all over Texas. I grew up closer to Mexico than Austin and the blacks had to sit in the balcony and go to the back window in the alley to order food at restaurants.

The schools were segregated and the bathrooms were separate. This was in the fifties and early sixties.

 

[Dionysus]

I grew up in Pasadena (Pasa-get-down-dena, TX — lots of stupid rednecks there) and I remember the KKK shop on Red Bluff road. I had never personally met a black person until my senior year in high school when two of them enrolled. They got a little crap from a couple of guys but those asswipes were quickly derailed.

Pasadena was otherwise an OK place to grow up — once you get out of school the city looks really nice in your rear-view mirror.

 

[FAST FRED]

I saw "The Help" with my wife and we thought it was very good and worth our while.

She says she liked it more than I did, but I think she misinterpreted the one time I dozed off, only for a moment.

The Link

Mostly older moviegoers filled Theater 3 of our formerly small town's cinema multiplex, almost to capacity.

Despite their expected manners and maturity, many of them arrived late, talked during the show, made cell phone calls, excused their way past us going to the snack bar or rest rooms too often and repeatedly jostled our seats from behind sufficiently enough to make our viewing experience less enjoyable than it should have been.

In our favor, however, they were so slow moving that after the movie ended we were able to leisurely leave the theater before this aged audience woke up, got their balance and managed to get their arthritic and crippled legs moving, so we didn't get caught up in the usual exit crowd and I made it to the john in record time.

The acting in this film was excellent and the story was worth the telling; however, for my only (and minor) complaint, I thought that at 146 minutes this movie was a bit too long.

IMHO, perhaps, a couple of the several subplots could have been left out, although I'll freely admit how everything which was shown and told by these movie makers certainly did give meaningful depth and satisfying substance to this heartfelt drama which was nicely leavened with comedy.

And, as a result, I expect "The Help" will be a strong candidate for the Best Picture Oscar.

I haven't seen any movie yet, which I think should beat it this year.

We'll see.

Furthermore, Viola Davis, and maybe Sissy Spacek too, should be Oscar nominated by the Academy for their acting excellence, IMO.

And Emma Stone, Bryce Dallas Howard and Octavia Spencer could garner nominations as well, if the thespian award categories have enough room therein to include recognition for their performances.

I think 10 in each category get nominated now.

I believe Viola Davis, who was a Best Supporting Actress nominee for her small, but pivotal and memorable, role in "Doubt," should be considered the leading actress (rather than a supporting actress) in this movie.

The open-ended finality which Viola's character promised and delivered as "The Help" was ending made hers a leading role for me.

Again, we'll see.

Davis and Amy Adams split the votes when they were each nominated for their supporting performances in "Doubt" and Penelope Cruz, just as I cogently predicted she would, won her gold statuette for "Vicky Christina Barcelona" back in 2009.

I haven't read Kathryn Stockett's novel on which director Tate Taylor based his screenplay, but I did live through those increasingly turbulent decades in the South, when segregation became a national focal point and then finally ended, and I vividly recall those "separate, but equal" thoughts, times and places.

"The Help" is a good starting place for younger viewers, who've little working knowledge and no experienced understanding about those days, to begin their learning and it's a moving, reminiscent summary for the older folks among us who do.

However, as I said, no younger moviegoers were in my school day afternoon audience.

While not a derivative film by any means, "The Help" has been preceded in its cinematic description of the thinking and the people involved (which it succeeds so well in depicting) by such earlier movies as "Gone with the Wind," both versions of "Imitation of Life," "To Kill a Mockingbird," "Roots," "Ghosts of Mississippi," "Mississippi Burning," "4 Little Girls," "Driving Miss Daisy," "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman," "A Time to Kill," "The Long Walk Home" and even "The Stepford Wives."

There was little racial violence in "The Help," it's more about inequality, conflict and cruelty on the home front and, as a result, I believe this film may hit some viewers nearer to where they (or their families) lived rather than using places or events they've only heard about.

I recommend this flick for its fine acting and historical accuracy.

If you thought "The King's Speech" was a worthy Oscar winner and/or a worthwhile viewing experience for you at home or in the theater, here's another flick you should probably see.

And studiously watching this movie as partial preparation for other Aggies like myself before immersing ourselves in the SEC could be instructive as well.

 

[snow leopard27]

The following is a link to an NY Times article that the author of the book credits as giving her the idea for the story:

www.nytimes.com/1991/12/01/magazine/grady-s-gift.html

She claimed the following quote from the article really got her thinking about this subject matter:

"There is no trickier subject for a writer from the South than that of affection between a black person and a white one in the unequal world of segregation. For the dishonesty upon which such a society is founded makes every emotion suspect, makes it impossible to know whether what flowed between two people was honest feeling or pity or pragmatism. Indeed, for the black person, the feigning of an expected emotion could be the very coinage of survival."

 

[huisache]

re historical accuracy: it severely understated the violence in Mississippi's version of de segregation and the inforcement of the white supremacy regime. Most whites who were sympathetic to the plight of the blacks looked the other way or tried not to think about what underlay the continuation of the traditions of white rule. We were good Germans, in effect.

A few years ago I was talking to a black businesswoman who had graduated from Ole Miss in the '90s and told her my impressions of the place were tied up with the violence attendant on James Meredith getting admitted with the assistance of federal bayonets, lots of them, and she said she never heard a peep about her race from whites the whole time she was there and that Mississippi had moved on. She did say she liked Houston and had no intention of moving back to Mississippi.

 

[easonlake]

I went to see Gone With The
Wind with my sister. The only seats left were in "the balcony". We were the only 2 white faces up there. I also remember the white and colored bathrooms and drinking fountains right here in East Texas.