The Help

by Stacey Roberts

The Help is a heart-warming look into life in the Deep South during the 1960s. The film adaption of Kathryn Stockett’s best-selling novel by the same name sees Emma Stone (Easy A, Zombieland) as Skeeter, an aspiring Mississippi journalist, who returns from college to discover her beloved nanny has been fired.

She sets out to write an anonymous book about the lives of coloured maids with a rippling and sometimes disastrous result across her small Southern town.

The film is strong with a great storyline and powerful characters. Emma Stone is a standout as an intelligent woman who begins to realize she doesn’t fit in the world of glamorous yet incredibly racist stay-at-home wives.

Octavia Spencer, who plays feisty maid Minny, balances the emotionally charged film with plenty of laughs.

Allison Janney (Juno, The West Wing) is brilliant in her supporting role as Skeeter’s overbearing mother Charlotte.

While the film portrays 1960s Mississippi society well, the clichés are a little too much, including the maids’ love of fried chicken, finger clicks and perhaps one too many ‘mmm hmm sister’ lines.

It is an enjoyable film to see with the girls.