The Help

Director: Tate Taylor

Cast: Jessica Chastain, Viola Davis, Bryce Dallas Howard, Allison Janney, Octavia Spencer, Emma Stone

Genre: Drama 2011

Running time: 146 mins.

Rating:★★★

A story about very different, extraordinary women in the 1960's South who build an unlikely friendship around a secret writing project- one that breaks society's rules and puts them all at risk. 

Though, the audience is easily transported back to the South and the Sixties, but isn't clear what the connection between the hired help being the glue of these Southern housewives, the ladies who desperately want to have children, and the one Southern lady who would rather be a serious writer than a "Stepford Wife." Black and white etiquette, overly polite, bigotry, racism, and always dressing to the nines is what Aibileen and Skeeter (Emma Stone) are fighting against to be themselves. The connection of the three groups is the novel Skeeter wants to write on what it's like to be maid, how it feels to be a black woman raising white children, and the prejudices of black maids using their white employer's toilet. With a little courage, maybe frustration, and spiritual guidance that Aibileen agreed to tell her story to Skeeter. Illegal it maybe and initial disapproval from other maids, but the courage to do what's right is one of the driving force to finish. It's disheartening to witness these black maids compassion, brains, and having more dignity that the white women and having to unwillingly submit to the unwritten law of the white world.

However, as the story continues to unfold, that there are even some white women having to abide by these unwritten law just to keep themselves from being shunned. When the book is finally published, stirs up trouble, but also brings forth the what needed to happen in their world. It's never to late to find courage in oneself, love your enemies, and to tell the truth.