Hulu Period Drama With Amazing Cast Gets Better With Every Watch
The Help got a bit of backlash when it was first released in theaters, just as the book it was based on did. Perhaps this is why the film only has a 76 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes by critics, but a much higher score of 89 percent based on audience reviews. In any event, the movie is not only a good one, but also an important one. Stream it on Hulu now.
The Cast
With an all-star cast including Viola Davis, Emma Stone, Allison Janney, Octavia Spencer, and Bryce Dallas Howard, a gripping story, and humor woven throughout, you can’t help but love The Help.
The film opens up two Black housemaids, Aibileen Clark (Davis) and Minny Jackson (Spencer). Aibileen works for a bit of a batty woman, Elizabeth, who barely acknowledges her two-year old daughter, only to find out she’s pregnant again.
The Story
Aibileen, who is narrating the story, tells us of how she falls in love with the many babies she’s raised, and Mae Mobley is no exception.
Though not the prettiest child, Mae Mobley hears encouraging words from Aibileen every day. Minny works for Mrs. Walters (Sissy Spacek), a kind older woman who’s slowly losing her mind, and the two now live with Mrs. Walters’ daughter, Hilly Hollbrook (Howard), who is the alpha female of her social group.
Telling Stories
We see how both white women are either outright rude to “the help” or ignore them as if they are invisible. When they gather to meet their girlfriend, Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan (Stone), they notice something different about the recent college graduate.
She’s taken a job at a local newspaper, and she wants to be a writer. She is almost entirely uninterested in finding a husband to marry, like most of the women her age in this area, Jackson Mississippi, and this time, the 1960s.
We also meet Celia Foote (Jessica Chastain), a woman from out of town and the wrong side of the tracks, who has married one of the most eligible bachelors in town and is outcast as a result. As The Help builds, we find Skeeter increasingly interested in telling the stories of the Black maids.
The Struggle
Hilly refuses to use the same bathroom as “the help,” Elizabeth speaks about her maid as if she’s not there, the pay is drastically unfair, and in the background of it all, dissent is breaking out across the country over the civil rights of Black people.
Skeeter pitches a book idea to a publisher in New York, Elaine Stein (Mary Steenburgen), who tells Skeeter that she must have actual stories from maids, or it’s just a disconnected piece written by a white woman.
The Help reveals Skeeter’s struggle to love her dying mother, Charlotte (Allison Janney), who is wildly out of touch and old fashioned, to remain friends with the women from her childhood, and stand by what she believes in while giving voice to Minny, Aibileen, and their fellow housemaids.
And Stone pulls off these scenes brilliantly. While there will continue to be backlash against perhaps not properly telling the stories of Black people in the present or the past, as these are complex, individual stories, I am just glad someone, anyone, is telling them with heart, taste, truth, and compassion.
Stream It Now
GFR SCORE
I recently sat down to watch this movie with my daughter. I had seen it several times, and this was her first time. She loved it, and as she’s currently studying the Black history in the United States, I was thrilled to get to show her this film with so many wonderful actors and such a well-told story. I recommend The Help to anyone who loves a bit of history mixed with a lot of humor and a healthy dash of harsh reality. The perfect combination.
