The Help

Adapted from a best-selling book that took its author Kathryn Stockett 5 years to write, ‘The Help’ was directed by Tate Taylor who along with Kathryn was born in Jackson and attended the same pre-school.

‘The Help’ is set in 1962 in the middle of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement, 7 years after Rosa Parks made history in Montgomery and 6 years before Martin Luther King was to be assassinated.

The film tells the story of African-American maids working for white families in Jackson, Mississippi and how a privileged white woman, Eugenia ‘Skeeter’ Phelan (Emma Stone) returning from college, aspiring to be a writer, takes up their cause.

‘The Help’ has a convincing cast who fill the screen with interesting, all be it stereotypical, strong women. Octavia Spencer won the Academy Award for the 'Best Actress in a Supporting Role' as sassy Minny Jackson who saves Celia Foote (Jessica Chastain), the good-hearted floozy in an entertaining 'Gone with the Wind' pastiche.

It’s a shame the men are so 2-dimensional, given in the 60s women were still suffering prejudice themselves in education and the workplace.  And it’s also interesting to note that there is only one real villain – Hilly Holbrook, played with great pantomime gusto by Bryce Dallas Howard; when in reality she would be in the majority.

It's a commendable attempt to present a sanitised version of this emotive subject but for all its uncomfortable moments of segregated loos and complete disregard for feelings; it never delivers the brooding menace of real violence against African-Americans that festered in the South at this time.

For all its faults, it's worth watching - this elevated 'chick flick' is superficially uplifting - women triumph, baddies get what they deserve and good prevails.