#50 - The Help (2011)

Films like this make me wonder why do I not go to the movies more often. I watch most of the stuff here online or on tv, but when it comes to checking the time and venue, making the arrangements with friends... maybe I'm just lazy, or theatres in my country are expensive enough to discourage me from coming by every now and then, but I miss out on a lot because of this. The Help was out of my radar until one year after it came out and thank god I spotted it on my cable network's pay per view catalog. It was totally worth it.

The Help is one of those films set fifty-something years ago, where a single person with a modern mindset tries to do something about the faulty status quo and faces dthe adversity of an old-fashioned society. But even then the interesting characters and original plot points keep it from being a generic premise made with Mad Libs or something. Emma Stone plays Skeeter, a recently graduated, idealistic white reporter in the 60's Mississippi, that with the help of two black maids, Aibeleen and Minny starts writing a story from their point of view about what they go through while working for white families.

The cast is predominantly female, and is split into the wealthy, hypocritical white bimbos and the black maids. Racism, then, is the main theme of the film. The scenes where Skeeter is the focus of attention shows her group of friends as... you know, stupid, pompous housewifes that get married to a rich guy and spend the rest of their lives gossiping, giggling and playing bridge... But their true racist, narrow-minded nature is revealed through the testimony of the maids. The "leader" of the white chicks, Hilly Holbrook, is a bigot bitch that, for instance, starts an initiative to make separate bathrooms for the maids "since they carry different diseases", and the like. Every revelation is an emotional kick in the nuts, sometimes, shocking, heart-wrenching, or even hilarious.

"Eat my shit." Hands down the best part of the film.

Character wise, the film is very strong. While Skeeter and Aibeleen are interesting characters, Minny and Hilly steal the show on their own way. Octavia Spencer got an Academy Award for her role as Minny, and it totally shows: a smart-mouthed, condescendant woman with a short fuse that has gotten her fired once or twice, and nails the part perfectly. Hilly, on the other hand, is one of those antagonists that you love to hate: always hiding her anger and bigotry behind that pretty little smile of hers. Another thing that stands out about all the performances, aside from the great characters, is the facial expressions. They might be a little over dramatic but they make the film a lot more enjoyable.

There are a couple of flaws, though. I felt like the film concentrated all the racial intolerance and opposition into one character just for storytelling's sake. Don't get me wrong, the other white women are easy to dislike too, but I felt like the film treated racism as the work of an evil mastermind and not as a social issue. And I really disliked Celia Foote's character. Oops, I hadn't mentioned her, have I? Because she doesn't fit in very well in the plot. I liked the fact that she was another way to exploit the white group's bigotry, being white but from a working class family, thus being scorned just as much, but the character is very cartoonish, naive and out of place. She ruined the dramatic/comedic tone a little.

Is she supposed to make up for it with her cleavage? She's halfway there.

Minor complaints aside, the film totally works as a drama film with bits of comedy in between. The issue of racism is very well adressed, well, maybe a little too dramatic, but what the hell. One of the best films from last year that I completely overlooked.