Film: The Help

Skeeter with Aibileen and Minnie

Set in a small community in the Deep South during the Civil Rights era and based on the best-selling novel by Kathryn Stockett, The Help shows some of the horrendous racial inequalities that existed at the time, from the perspective of the black women servants. Among other injustices there is a campaign started by one lady to forbid black domestic servants from using their mistresses' toilets - although they don't mind them looking after their children virtually all the time.

The story focusses on Eugenia 'Skeeter' Phelan (Emma Stone) returning to Jackson in the early 1960s after college and dreaming of becoming a serious writer, while her mother (Allison Janney) just wants her to find a husband.

Skeeter gets a job on the local paper writing the household hints column, and because of this begins chatting with one of the helps, Aibileen (Viola Davis). As their friendship develops she decides to secretly interview a number of black domestic servants to find out what their life is really like. Aibileen's sassy best friend Minnie (Octavia Spencer) eventually joins them in the dangerous project. There is also a sub-plot about a white girl from the other side of the tracks (Jessica Chastain) desperately trying to get accepted by Jackson society.

The film is shot in a hyper-real style, which I found overwhelmed the story at times. The camera shows us just so many retro items in the store, crinoline skirts, formica top kitchens, Cadillacs, glimpses of the Kennedys on black and white TVs and so forth I got distracted from the story more than once. This stylised jokey-serious quality gave it the feel of a very diluted John Waters movie - although there is one incident I think even Waters would have baulked at.

The script has turned the characters into dreadful stereotypes - the brittle catty blond housewives - personified by Hilly (Bryce Dallas Howard) who starts the toilet campaign, vs the dignified, downtrodden, kind, wise, black women. There are also just too many sentimental moments for me - with soaring soundtrack, tears welling up in people's eyes as they look at each other and vow to keep on fighting and so forth.

Having said that - there are some lovely performances especially from Emma Stone as Skeeter, Cicely Tyson, very endearing as her old nanny and Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer as the irrepressible Aibileen and Minnie. But I can't help thinking that for black domestics working in Mississippi in the 1960s - life wasn't such a laugh.