The Help
A while back (so long ago that I can’t even find the original post), I wrote about a book called The Help by Kathryn Stockett. It’s about a woman who graduates from college in Mississippi in the 50’s and returns home to find her dreams of being a journalist aren’t exactly taking off. After witnessing the inequality and racism that was prevalent at the time, she has the idea of interviewing the black women who work as maids for the white women in her hometown, to see what their lives are really like. Their stories are heartbreaking, frustrating, sometimes hilarious and always moving. The book was an extremely popular one and after our book club read it, I suggested it to my sister who read it in her book club as well. Then we passed it off to our mom.
The stars of the show
And when I was visiting my dad and grandparents in Louisiana in June, I caught my grandma reading it on her Kindle (yes that was strange for me to type) and we were able to have some really honest and interesting conversations about what it was like for her to have black women work in her home back in the day. This book has pretty much made the rounds through my family and when the movie came out, a book club gal pal of mine and I decided we had to check it out.
Now as any avid read/movie watcher knows, the books are typically always better than the movies. Some notable exceptions include Fight Club and The Muppet’s Christmas Movie. I’ll admit that when the casting for The Help was released, I was initially skeptical of Emma Stone in the lead role. She’s cute and all but not what I pictured in my head as I was reading. However, I was pleasantly surprised by her performance and I think she did a pretty good job. The main characters in both the book and the movie are all women and it was really cool to see a film where the best roles were all played by talented ladies (for those of you in the know, the woman who played Minnie nailed it). I laughed, I cried and I was really glad I saw the movie. It did run a little long (2.5 hours could’ve easily been trimmed to just under 2) but it was a long book to begin with and they still didn’t flesh out everything they could’ve. Ultimately though, they did an admirable job of sticking to the book and I came away satisfied.
And here’s a fun fact: the woman who plays the character Hilly in the film is Ron Howard’s daughter. I know this because I had a conversation about the movie with a lovely middle-aged couple while walking out of the theater. She was good too, so those acting chops must be genetic. I mean she was no Opie but she wasn’t half bad. But don’t take my word for it….
(Sidenote: that last phrase there is lifted from one of my favorite childhood programs, Reading Rainbow. And I sang the theme song to that show in a duet with a stranger while her boyfriend looked on in embarrassment while we waited for a train just after I saw the movie this weekend. I can’t make this shit up).
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