A Mississippi Story

Once upon a time in America, a group of people took it upon itself to keep another one down.

It wasn’t a particularly proud period in the country’s history, as you will see in relative newcomer director Tate Taylor’s sure-to-be-crowd-pleasing The Help, which he adapted from real-life BFF Kathryn Stockett’s 1960s-set 2009 best-selling novel.

The movie explores an aspect of those infamous class and race wars...the one between the white Jackson, Miss., ladies that luncheoned and the black maids that tended to their every whim. (I could so draw a parallel to the current equal-rights plight of a few, but let me not get into that right now. I don’t know much about African-American history to evaluate the politics of the movie at hand, and I’m still learning about what’s up these days....)

Two of these maids – who were good enough to be surrogate mothers to these women’s children but not good enough to use the same bathrooms – are played by Oscar nominee Viola Davis (Doubt) and scene-stealer Octavia Spencer. Their Aibileen and Minny are the heart and soul of The Help, and the actresses play their roles with remarkable passion.

They bring gravitas and poignancy and appropriate levity to the characters of the fully-rounded women they embody. Their acting will make you sit there in such collective awe in the dark of the movie theater, for, I should trust, you will recognize the self-possession they provide Aibileen and Minny, essentially two slaves who remain dignified in the face of unjustifiable abuse.

That which terrorizes them is personified by the haughty Hilly Holbrook (Bryce Dallas Howard), Jackson’s queen bee of unabashed bitchery. Hilly’s just a terrible, terrible lady, hellbent on keeping the line in the sand firmly delineated and spreading her haterade among her pals, which include fellow socialite Elizabeth Leefolt (Anna O’Reilly) but not the deliciously Marilyn-esque Celia Foote (Jessica Chastain), a nouvelle riche from the wrong side of the picket fence who endures her own brand of discrimination.

On the opposite end of this way of thinking is Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan (the impossibly It Emma Stone), a college-educated Southern not-so-Belle. She’s returned home after graduation a would-be career woman, a budding journalist who doesn’t quite have the experience yet to land something better than a housekeeping-advice column at the local newspaper.

It’s Skeeter’s more worldly perspective that awakens her to the unfairness of her circle and drives her to break all the rules of the time and write a tell-all about Jackson’s maids and the women who treat them as second-class citizens when they should be thanking them, if not learning from them.

She enlists Aibileen and Minny for her project, and the two agree to talk to her, albeit reluctantly at first, because they realize it’s time to take a stand, alright. Their bond will make all the difference, and drive The Help to transcend its conventions.

Stone isn’t here to propel the story but, rather, to support it. This is Davis and Spencer’s movie, and while the subject matter may be super-polarizing, Taylor’s execution is pretty pitch-perfect.

Skeeter’s no more savior than she is ally. She wants to tell a story, not for personal gain but because it’s a story worth telling. And it’s sooo worth your money to invest in this one.

Aibileen and Minny are strong in their own right, and, as far as this movie’s concerned, equal to all else. AS I said, they are the heart and soul of this movie, and it’s a heart that beats hard and a soul that runs deep. Like history.

My Rating ****

Photo: Walt Disney Pictures.