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.

Doc Brown Tackles Love While Marty Conquers the West in Back to the Future III

I’ve long loved the first two Back to the Future movies, but I never got around to the third until recently. I’d heard from some that it wasn’t quite up to snuff, but I found it an enjoyable romp.

Unlike the dizzying second installment, Back to the Future III is mostly rooted in one time: the Old West. Despite Doc Emmett Brown’s (Christopher Lloyd) explicit instructions to Marty (Michael J. Fox) to destroy the time machine and not attempt to retrieve him from 1885, when the loyal teen finds out that a grisly fate awaits his eccentric friend if he doesn’t intervene, he’s compelled to hop in the time machine yet again.

In some ways, the movie is very repetitive, but then so was the second. The fun is in seeing how essentially the exact same scene can be transplanted into another time. Naturally, Biff’s surly ancestor Mad Dog (Thomas F. Wilson) is at the heart of much of the trouble. I barely recognized Wilson under his accent and outlaw get-up, though his basic mannerisms are pretty similar. Other familiar faces pop up in distant past too. I’m most amused by Marty’s principal showing up as the sheriff.

Fox doubles as his great-great grandfather, fresh-off-the-boat Seamus, which makes Lea Thompson’s presence as Marty’s great-great grandmother even more eyebrow-raising. It’s weird to see Marty’s 100-years-older twin married to a dead ringer for Marty’s mother – and why does his paternal great-great grandmother look like his mother, anyway? But it’s more fun to keep recycling the same actors, and Thompson’s phony accent annoys me less than her voice in the other installments.

This movie really isn’t about Marty, though, aside from his finally learning how to back down from a pointless challenge. Mostly, it’s about Doc falling head over heels for brainy schoolteacher Clara (Mary Steenburgen). Lloyd isn’t your typical romantic lead, and certainly not in this role, but even though Doc had always considered himself too logical and scientifically-minded to get caught up in romance, once the bug bites him, he’s as smitten as a schoolboy, and he and Clara make quite the charming couple even though the character must be about twice her age.

It’s fun for us to see Doc in this unexpected situation. Not so fun for Marty, who’s got one great shot at getting the time machine running again. If he fails, he’s likely to be stuck in the 1800s forever, so this is not a great time for Doc to be distracted.

This third installment is entertaining, with fun nods at the previous movies – like Doc and Marty using each other’s catchphrases – and at the western genre. Marty particularly has fun appropriating the name Clint Eastwood.

I don’t know why it took me so long to get there, but Back to the Future III is a journey to the past that I’d gladly take again.

One Magic Christmas Isn't As Enchanting as the Title Suggests

One thing I love about December is the abundance of Christmas movies available for viewing. I've had Netflix to help put me in the holiday spirit the last couple of years, but it's always a pretty good bet that flipping through the channels will yield something Christmassy as well. That was what led my brother and me to One Magic Christmas, which we watched at my grandparents' house after the rest of the family had turned in for the night. It aired on the Hallmark channel, so before it even started we figured we had a pretty good idea of what the movie's tone would be. It turned out to be darker than we expected and rather convoluted too. It made for some interesting late-night viewing, but it's not a movie I'll be seeking to slip in with our traditional favorites next year.

One Magic Christmas is a 1985 movie written and directed by Phillip Borsos and starring Mary Steenburgen as Ginny Hanks Grainger, a woman who, due to a recent searing personal loss and an ongoing family economic crisis, doesn't want anything to do with Christmas this year. The whole season just makes her cranky. Her husband Jack (Gary Basaraba), on the other hand, still finds Christmas as enchanting as he did when he was a youngster. He even has a childlike dream for the season: to open a bike shop. Practical Ginny is convinced such a move would lead to the family's financial ruination, however, and it doesn't take their children, Abbie (Elisabeth Harnois) and Cal (Robbie Magwood), long to figure out there's some major tension in the household. The stress of it all presses sweet little Abbie to venture outside in the middle of the night to deliver a last-minute letter to Santa pleading for her mom to catch the spirit of Christmas. It's at this point that she meets Gideon (Harry Dean Stanton), a Christmas angel who promises to help in fulfilling her request.

What follows is a mash-up of It's a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Carol and every special you've ever seen about a favored child being granted a close encounter with Santa. Steenburgen is shrill as the overwrought Ginny; though it's easy to sympathize with her plight, she's not nearly as likable as George Bailey, and her surliness is less entertaining than Scrooge's. Stanton's angel is gentle but awfully morose-looking. I couldn't help thinking of C. S. Lewis's gloomy Puddleglum whenever he turned up. Santa (Jan Rubes) in this film bears more of a resemblance to the traditional St. Nicholas than usual; his home feels cozy and old-fashioned, and he is much skinnier than normal. He speaks with a Czech accent, which is certainly an unusual touch. His role in the movie is small but significant, as he is key to Ginny's eventual transformation.

Harnois is adorable, which works in the movie's favor since Abbie is the one who really moves the plot along, even more than Ginny. I enjoyed her performance for the most part, and Abbie's interaction with her brother provided some fun moments. What I couldn't really get into were the movie's weird plot twists and some of the ideas it presents, like the notion that Santa's workers are not elves but exceptionally good people who have died. The movie starts getting really strange about halfway through, and we eventually learn that the events that unfold are akin to George's experiences toward the end of It's a Wonderful Life, but that's not entirely clear from the get-go, which makes for some rather uncomfortable viewing, especially when two major characters bite the dust. I'm also not that wild about the way so much hinges on a letter that Ginny once wrote to Santa Claus, and a really vacuous letter at that. For all the talk of angels, I don't recall any overt references to God; Santa seems to serve as a stand-in.

One Magic Christmas has a nice message to impart about the importance of family and of retaining a childlike sense of wonder. But the way in which it gets there is a little bizarre for my tastes. I’d skip this one and stick with one of the movies that inspired it.

I Won't Call Foul on Ferrell in Elf

Lately, I've been deluged with advertisements in which a dopey basketball player with big hair played by Will Ferrell promotes the movie Semi-Pro. Although Ferrell was my favorite Saturday Night Live cast member during his time on the show, largely because of his hilarious impersonations of such venerable figures as George W. Bush, Alex Trebek and James Lipton, I've generally found his films to be crude and stupid. However, there has been one notable exception to that trend.

Elf stars Ferrell as Buddy, the tallest elf in Santa's workshop. He lives in a world built for people half his size and smaller. Though he's bursting with Christmas cheer, always wearing an exuberant grin as he prances about in his green suit and yellow tights, physically, he just doesn't fit in, and there's a very good reason for that. Buddy is not an elf.

No, he's a regular old human who stowed away in Santa's (Ed Asner) pack as an infant and wound up at the North Pole, a fish out of water but still presumably much happier than he would have been at the orphanage he left. Though he loves his frosty home and especially the elf who raised him (Bob Newhart), when he gets the shocking truth about his past, Buddy is determined to go to the big city and meet his father (James Caan). But the naive young man with the emotional maturity of a five-year-old isn't prepared for what lies ahead...

Ferrell completely throws himself into his performance, making Buddy funny without being obnoxious, sweet without being saccharine. Yes, he's over-the-top, but having seen what Ferrell is capable of, I'd say he exercised admirable restraint. While Buddy was physically out of place at the North Pole, he is mentally out of place in New York City, impossibly bright-eyed and naive like Giselle in Disney's Enchanted.

Like Giselle, he finds himself falling for a jaded New Yorker. In this case, it's department store elf Jovie (Zooey Deschanel), who isn't too full of the Christmas spirit. Their romance unfolds gradually, prodded along by Buddy's encouragement for her to sing, an activity she doesn't want to admit she loves. Speaking of singing, the movie got a nice little squeal out of me with an off-hand reference to Simon and Garfunkel; if you love Paul and Artie as much as I do, keep an ear out!

While I don't expect much out of Semi-Pro, Elf is a thoroughly enjoyable movie, a gently funny showcase of all the best Ferrell has to offer, and I hope he has a film or two along those family-friendly lines in his future.