Courageous Storytellers Fight for Their Rights in The Help

This summer, my mom had a hip replacement, so she missed out on seeing several big movies opening weekend. She still plans to catch Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II, which the rest of us saw without her, but for her first trip to the theater in months, we followed the recommendation of several friends and decided to check out The Help. While neither of us had read the Kathryn Stockett novel upon which it was based, I could attest to the book’s popularity in the bookstore where I worked, and my grandma thought it was wonderful, which was reason enough for me to be curious about it.

The Help, written and directed by Tate Taylor, is set in 1960s Mississippi in a small town where black maids work tirelessly for high-society white families, receiving little compensation or recognition for their work, which often includes raising the children of parents too busy with social obligations to bother. One such child grew up to be Skeeter Phelan (Emma Stone), a spunky, tomboyish aspiring writer who returns home after college to find her nagging mother (Allison Janney) ailing and her beloved housekeeper Constantine (Cicely Tyson) missing.

When she manages to secure a small writing gig as a domestic advice columnist, Skeeter turns to Aibileen Clark (Viola Davis), the film’s narrator, for household advice. However, she soon shifts her attention to a heftier writing project when she begins to notice that her childhood friends do not treat their maids with the proper degree of consideration. In fact, some of them are downright cruel, and the worst offender is her old chum Hilly Holbrook (Bryce Dallas Howard), who has begun an obsessive campaign to require separate bathrooms for black domestic help due to concerns over disease. Skeeter realizes that these maids need an outlet for their frustration and that maybe if she could compile their stories, those who read about the injustices they face might be inspired to make changes. However, fear of repercussions makes most maids in the area reluctant to cooperate, and Skeeter has a limited window of time in which to present a viable book to New York editor Elain Stein (Mary Steenburgen). Will she be able to find enough willing interviewees in time?

Stone is immensely likable as the plucky Skeeter, who somehow avoided falling into the trap that so many of her peers did. Always a bit of an oddball, she put more store by the lessons about internal worth and integrity handed down by the gentle Constantine than her own mother’s chidings about her lack of fashion sense and misplaced priorities in seeking a career over matrimony. Kind but feisty, she treats her interviewees, especially stately Aibileen, the first to cooperate, with respect and isn’t afraid to knock her frivolous friends down a peg or two when circumstances call for it. While the movie contains a minor romantic subplot, Skeeter’s most significant interactions are with her own mother, whose shortcomings she strives to understand, and Aibileen, who is her gateway into comprehending the trials many such maids endure.

Davis is really the heart of the movie, carrying herself with quiet dignity as Aibileen observes the unfair conditions around her but maintains her strong work ethic and dedicates herself to raising children who are more compassionate than their parents. Her scenes with chubby, adoring toddler Mae (Emma and Eleanor Henry) are among the most touching in the film as she tries to make up for the neglect of Mae’s mother and instill in this child valuable lessons that will make her a better person.

Contrasting with Aibileen’s calm personality is her best friend, Minny Jackson (Octavia Spencer), a spitfire whose unwillingness to be bullied by Hilly leads her to take a job working for a fellow outcast. Jessica Chastain brings naïve exuberance to the role of Celia Foote, who is as kind and appreciative as Hilly is icy and unyielding. So profoundly grateful is this hopeless housekeeper for a helping hand in the kitchen that their friendship soon flourishes, and her sunny outlook and genuine decency makes her scenes refreshing after all of the snooty behavior displayed among most of the women in town.

The cast on the whole is excellent, with Howard perhaps the chief standout as the most sickly sweet villainess to grace a screen since Imelda Staunton’s Dolores Umbridge. Sissy Spacek delivers several laughs as Hilly’s mildly batty mother, as does Leslie Jordan as Skeeter’s expressively exasperated boss at the newspaper. The look and feel of the movie immerses viewers in a very particular time and place, and sermons given by the preacher (David Oyelowo) at the church Aibileen and Minnie attend help to underscore the movie’s theme of having the courage to do what is right in the face of adversity.

One of these days I intend to take my grandma’s advice and read The Help; if it’s anything like the adaptation, I am certain I will agree with her assessment. While the movie is being marketed primarily to women, I would recommend this powerful film to anyone as a tale of friendship, integrity and the power of a compelling story told with conviction.

Hairspray Exuberantly Examines the Notion of Otherness

I've been hearing a lot about Hairspray over the last couple years thanks to the enthusiasm of my young cousins, who were such fans of the show that they went to see it on Broadway. Aside from hearing the effervescent opening number, Good Morning, Baltimore - a grand hello to a bustling city that reminds me a lot of our beautifully boisterous introduction to Belle and her little town in Beauty and the Beast - on late-night and early-morning television, in the Macy's Parade and on Ugly Betty, I was pretty unfamiliar with the play, but all the buzz about it was enough to get me pretty pumped up for the movie when I heard that director Adam Shankman would be bringing it to the big screen.

Yesterday, my parents, my friend Libbie and I decided to see for ourselves what all the hype was about. What we got was a joyous kaleidoscope of slightly over-the-top early-sixties eye candy, with the darker edges of that era bubbling beneath the surface until they are brought into the full light of scrutiny when Queen Latifah's matronly Motormouth Maybelle leads a soulful march protesting the segregationist policies of The Corny Collins Show, the American Bandstand-esque television program that turns Tracy Turnblad (Nikki Blonsky), a starry-eyed teen with a heart as oversized as her pudgy frame, into an overnight sensation.

Blonsky is absolutely infectious in the lead role. The girl is a ray of sunshine, undeterred by all the obstacles that stand in the way of her dream of dancing on her favorite TV show, while also unwilling to compromise her principles for the sake of her ambition. As the film progresses, she becomes acutely aware of how the black students from whom she learns her best dance moves are oppressed, and she yearns to create an environment in which race need no longer be a barrier to opportunities. Just as she has broken down conventional societal expectations of beauty, she strives to show everyone that integration is the wave of the future.

Along the way, she dances her heart out and takes a few time-outs to sigh dreamily over Ricky Nelson-esque Link Larkin (Zac Efron), who gradually comes to see Tracy as a young woman of such substance that she overshadows his perfectly coiffed girlfriend Amber Von Tussle (Brittany Snow), whose conniving mother (Michelle Pfeiffer), the manager of the station on which the dance show airs, undermines the new girl every step of the way despite opposition from host Corny (James Marsden), whose dazzling smile gleams all the brighter whenever Tracy takes to the stage.

Her best friend Penny Pingleton (Amanda Bynes), a wisp of a girl with an omnipresent lollipop, ducks out from under the icy repression of her puritanical mother Prudy (Allison Janney) when she falls head over heels for Maybelle's exuberant son Seaweed (Elijah Kelley). Tracy, meanwhile, aims to bring her mother Edna (John Travolta), a frumpy laundress whose crippling self-image has long led her to eschew the outside world, into contemporary society. She's not an unreasonable woman; she's just insecure and set in her ways, and with a little nudging she is ready to support her daughter in her endeavors, though perhaps not as whole-heartedly as Tracy's gentle, eccentric father Wilbur (Christopher Walken), who achieved his own long-held goal when he opened a novelty shop, which enjoys an upsurge in business in the wake of Tracy's newfound celebrity.

Much was made of Travolta's gender-bending performance here, and he certainly immersed himself in the part, though I was never quite able to forget that she was actually a he, and neither was the rest of the audience, judging by the nervous titters that rippled whenever Walken edged in for a kiss. After his over-the-top performance in High School Musical, I wasn't sure what I would think of Efron, but he was much more nuanced here, even though he was in a similar role as a dreamboat who is startled into self-awareness by the arrival of an unconventional gal. I didn't think there was a weak link in the cast, and I give special kudos to Janney for making such a simultaneously humorous and terrifying impression in her brief appearances.

As someone with limited familiarity with the songs in this film, I was impressed by their energy and complexity. The lyrics in particular are very clever, perfectly capturing the various speech patterns of characters and often riddled with sly innuendoes that indicate this was not such an innocent time after all. Most of these are subtle enough that they would probably go right over the heads of youngsters, and there's little else in the movie that could be considered objectionable. Indeed, Hairspray is an ideal film for the family to see together, as the bouncy dance numbers and likable characters reel audiences in for a poignant lesson in the importance of accepting other people's differences. Don't miss out!

These Chums Should Scrub Their Mouths Out With Soap, But We Can Learn From Them

Watching a movie with my mom can be a very interesting experience. If it's an action-packed film full of narrow escapes and violent encounters, we can bank on her letting out at least three or four screeches loud enough to rouse the whole neighborhood. If it's a mystery, she's sure to spout several inquiries at the television or her fellow viewers as to what is going on. But I don't think I have ever witnessed her having a more vocal reaction to a film than she had to The Chumscrubber.

The movie came courtesy of my brother Nathan, who had seen it and raved about it. Though he knew just what to expect from the ensuing scenes, Mom and I had little idea what this indie had to offer. As it turned out, what it offered more than anything else was ludicrously incompetent parents. "Oh, my gosh!" Mom yowled, time and again, slapping her pillow in dismay as the adults in this freakishly perfect community failed to listen to a word their teenagers were (or weren't) saying. "These people are such idiots!" She was incensed. Furious. Livid that even in an exaggeration of reality the phrases "talking without speaking" and "hearing without listening" could have such broad applicability. But if Paul Simon had woken up one day in the world of this movie, he may just have thrown up his hands in despair and called it a day.

The movie revolves around Dean Stiffle (Jamie Bell), a surly, disengaged teen who turns out to be just about the most normal character in the film. After finding his best friend Troy (Josh Janowicz) dead in his room, his already dreary life goes from bad to worse. His psychologist dad, who's been shoving pills down his throat for as long as he can remember, keeps pressing him for his feelings in the face of losing Troy so he can incorporate his responses into his next book. Class punk Billy (Justin Chatwin) and his lackey Lee (Lou Taylor Pucci) torment him with re-enactments of Troy's death. Oh, and then they kidnap his brother Charlie (Rory Culkin) so that Dean will be forced to retrieve the drugs still stashed in Troy's room.

Except they kidnap the wrong Charlie: Charlie Bratler (Thomas Curtis), a scrawny tuba-playing geek who initially is rather amused by the proceedings, enjoying the change of pace, particularly the attentions of Crystal (Camilla Belle), a compassionate young woman who seems to be romantically attached to Billy but is growing fonder of Dean by the hour. So the plan seems pointless for a while until Billy refuses to release Charlie after repeated requests and grows violent after Dean delivers the wrong goods, thanks to some intervention by his real brother, who's such a twerp it probably would have been much better for everybody if he actually had been the one kidnapped.

While the film focuses on the journey of these young characters through a wasteland of sugary suburbia more garish than the neighborhood featured in the haunting Edward Scissorhands, what had my mom shaking her fists was the parents, from Dean's exploitative father (William Fichtner) and burnt-out, vitamin-obsessed mother (Allison Janney) to Crystal's mother (Carrie-Anne Moss), who is so obsessed with staying youthful that she competes with her daughter for the attention of teenage boys, and from Troy's mother (Glenn Close), who catatonically accepts casseroles while calling all her neighbors to assure them, "In no way whatsoever do I blame you for Troy's death," to Lee's parents (Caroline Goodall and Jason Isaacs), who refuse to pay attention when he tries to let them in on Billy's plot.

Worst of all, though, is perpetually busy Terri Bratley (Rita Wilson), who is so occupied with talking a mile a minute while she works out the overly complicated last-minute details of her wedding that she fails to realize her son is missing. She's so insufferable, it's a good thing she's balanced out by the delicate naivete of her fiance, mayor Michael Ebbs (Ralph Fiennes), who's been in a bit of a daze since the unfortunate tumble that introduced him to Terri. He recently experienced a sense of awakening, however, thanks to a book written by Dean's dad, so while he still seems confused, he wanders about now enmeshed in eccentricity and awash with exuberance, eager to share his newly acquired vision - which compels him to immerse himself in liquids and paint dolphins on the living room walls - with the world. He is easily my favorite character.

But Dean and Crystal are pretty likable protagonists, and it's up to them to break free of the constraints of their crippling surroundings in order to do what they know is right. So this maddening, often foul-mouthed, occasionally violent satire ultimately acts as a morality play. And if my mom's screams of indignation are any indication, I think they got the message across.