“THE HELP:” A ROUSINGLY EFFECTIVE, CHARMING STORY YOU CANNOT MISS

----- Writing by Federico M. Bones

“The Help” is a 2011 film about the relationship between the glittering, glamorous upper class women of the 60s America (Mississippi, to be more precise) and the oppressed black maids, which gives us a peek into the bigger relationship between the so-called WASPs and the black race in general at the time. It’s based on a homonym book by Kathryn Stockett, and it is a great experience for cinema lovers. Let’s see what’s good about it.

The story

The story is really simple, yet absolutely deep and moving. In the early 60s, an age when black people were yet struggling to be recognised as full operating citizens in the USA, women could only aspire to work as maids in the houses of white women who were living the American dream and whose only ambition was keeping up with the Joneses. In the midst of this superfluous class, which neglects the maids to a life of disrespect, emerges a voice that will try hard to echo the voices of the “nigras” and make them heard throughout the country.

The story is so brutally realistic, that you can’t but sympathise with and even feel somewhat benevolent towards the black when they do something against their owners. Even if it is wrong to do.

It’s most odious to see that slavery is still so present (and to such an extent) after a hundred years it had been abolished.

The characters

The cast is mainly female, and women are the real protagonists of the story. Men appear only as a ghostly presence, they are just “husbands” or “fellow-strugglers”. When they appear, they are black in their majority. The only white men actually appearing in the movie are three husbands and a bunch of extras.

Clearly, the world of those times is divided into two opposing poles: the white and the black. These poles mix very little, and when so, it’s only in a relationship of domination on the part of the former.

The main women are Eugenia ‘Skeeter’ Phelan (an upper-class writer), Hilly Holbrook (a full-time socialite, bridge-player and appearances-keeper), Aibileen Clark and Minny Jackson (two black maids who work in the houses of the white girls.)

Aibileen starts the film working at the house of Elizabeth Leefolt (another white girl.) There, she is a nanny to little Mae Mobley Leefolt. Aibileen has a very tragic historical background, not only because of her race but also on a more personal aspect.

There we also meet ‘Skeeter,’ a snow-white woman with fiery, bushy curls who is asking Aibeleen some questions and writing them down. Then we learn she’s trying to become a successful writer and will try to immortalize the experiences of the ‘nigras’ by gathering their testimonies together.

Skeeter is friend to Ms Hilly Holbrook (pay attention: Ms. Hilly Holbrook.) This is a very rich character I loved (I generally tend to love the evil characters.) She lives with her husband and her mother, William Holbrook and Mrs. Walters. Ms. Hilly is the most cruel and soulless, yet the most glamorous and envied woman in the whole Jackson, Mississippi. She’s sort of a femme fatale who seems to have the world at her feet, a beautiful house, a loving husband and a servant to do the housekeeping.

Minny works for Ms. Hilly, and lives next door with Aibileen in a black ghetto. She’s well-known for her delicious food, but she has a tiny problem: a difficulty to hold her tongue back. She’s very loyal to her people and distrustful of the white domineering women, like many (if not all) of her friends.

The acting / directing

Good characters, though, only go beyond screen when they are performed right. And this is the case in ‘The Help.’

Of particular interest for me are Viola Davis as Aibileen and Octavia Spencer as Minny. From the black English dialect (which many even claim to be a language apart from English) in which they excel and which makes the characters so rich and interesting, to the physical movements and in fact everything that makes a character, both of them manage to make you see and feel the riches of the niggaz culture.

I would like to highlight the performance of Bryce Dallas Howard as Ms. Hilly. She’s not a mainstream actress, or at least not well-known in Argentina. As a result, it was a most pleasant finding (for me.) Her physique du rôle matches Ms. Hilly perfectly, but it goes beyond that (after all appearances are too easy to find.) I really liked how she can say the cruellest thing without a single muscle of her smile-rictus failing. Now that I mention “smile,” I think that it’s there that we can find the best source for hatred: she has such a hypocrite smile! Her smile somehow reminds me of Ms. Umbridge’s in the Harry Potter films. Dallas Howard really gets into the hypocrite nature of Ms. Hilly and makes us hate her and feel a little overwhelmed and (maybe this is personal) scared.

Director Tate Taylor has done an amazing job. This shows that there is still true talent in Hollywood.

The setting

For period-fiction lovers like me, this one is a delight. It recreates the temporal and spacial atmosphere with such attention to detail (even though there are some anachronisms[1]), that you actually feel it was made at the time the story tells us about.

I particularly liked the choice of a southern actress to play a southern character. This contributes to her being realistic in a fantastic way, especially due to her accent. Emma Stone’s accent in the film is very southern.

I must also praise the costume designer. The clothes that women wear, and I’m speaking especially of the white women’s dresses (not because the others are ugly, but because they vary very little throughout the film). The dresses look more like dating from the 50s, and that’s precisely because the film is set in the very early 60s.

The makeup artists, especially the hairdressers, have done an outstanding performance too. It’s thanks to the hair that we notice the transition between the 50s and the 60s, with women wearing their hair loose and curving slightly upwards at the end (and a lot of spray.)

The themes

There are many themes that the film raises consciousness about.

First of all, and obviously, the ancient (and, let’s face it, still present) sense of superiority that some white people feel towards their colored mates, white women paying the nigras to work for them and considering that money as an entitler to property (and property as an entitler to lawless behaviour.)

We also find the hypocrisy of the white upper-class. Of particular interest is Ms. Hilly’s running a charity organization while not helping one of her servants with the studies of her children. What’s more she delivers the Christian morals speech to justify her not lending the money:

[trying to ask for a loan from Hilly  to pay for her two sons college tuition]

Yule Mae Davis: Well, now we're faced with having to choose which son can go if we don't come up with the money. Would you consider giving us a loan? I'd...I'd work everyday for free till it was paid off.

Hilly Holbrook: That's not working for free, Yule Mae. That's paying off a debt.

Yule Mae Davis: Yes, ma'am.

[Yule Mae takes the breakfast dishes and turns to leave]

Hilly Holbrook: As a Christian, I'm doin' you a favor. See, God don't give no charity to those who are well and able. You need to come up with this money on your own. Okay?

[Yule Mae is almost in tears now]

Yule Mae Davis: Yes, ma'am.

Hilly Holbrook: You'll thank me one day.[2]

This makes me remind religion, which the white use as a tool for domination and the black use as a place of shelter. They share service with their fellow-colored people and inspire each other to at least endure what they cannot change.

Then, and at the background, we find the struggle of the black community for their civil rights. Many a time we hear or see mentions to negroes being murdered, to the KKK, to Martin Luther King and to the way/s in which the dominant class considered the dominated one.

We also find literature as an echo of the period, and people using literature to exorcise their rage and put into words the unjustice around them. Like Viola Davis herself said, “[...]There was also extraordinary need. I think that we got to the point that we thought that the only thing left was to tell our stories because the unjustices were so great[...]”[3]

In addition we find the now classic female rebel. This is embodied by Skeeter, who sees the rules that women had to follow at the time for what they really were: ridiculous and showbiz ettiquete. She doesn’t want to marry just because she has too, and there is a point when her mother suggests that she might be turning a lesbian because of that. Besides, she is not only concerned by the stupidity attributed to her sex (and, what’s more, made endure without questioning by most women.) She feels sympathy for the black dominees as well, and (as I said before) helps them make their voices heard across the country.

Finally, and this is not at all limiting (for there might be many other themes as well), we find the deep relationships between some members of both social classes. Skeeter is motivated to write about the black world because she had a black nurse who taught her much more than her own mother. This is the same with Aibileen and Mae Mobley, and there is a heart-melting scene when the girl says to Aibileen “You’re my real mamma, Aibee.”

Overall

I would not like to finish without mentioning Kathryn Stockett, the woman who played one of the biggest parts in the creation of this film. Without her, this film would have been impossible.

To sum up, I think that this film can’t be defined other than as a masterpiece. It has all the ingredients that I look for in a potentially favourite movie: a good story, good characters, rich relationships between them and depth. It breaks your heart, it makes you laugh, it makes you feel identified with some of the stories. In addition it has the charm of bygone ages which have nevertheless left a stamp in our cultural phylogenetics.

Some have criticised it for being rather naive and sentimentalist, but I agree with a review made by Xan Brooks for ‘The Guardian’: “Airbrushed fairytale it may be, but The Help's account of the push for racial equality in 1960s Mississippi is rousingly effective.”[4]

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[1] Check IMDb’s goofs section here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1454029/trivia?tab=gf

[2] Taken from “Movie Quotes and More” http://www.moviequotesandmore.com/the-help-movie-quotes-1.html

[3] Interview at ABC’s “Good Morning America,” as seen in the following YouTube link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyHSH9MCjWM

[4] ‘The Help – Review,” Xan Brooks, ‘The Guardian’ (http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/oct/27/the-help-film-review)
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