I was pleasantly surprised when I ended up finishing the book in just two days. Stockett makes it easy for the reader to fall in love with the story. You can feel the heat of the hot Mississippi summer rise off the pages, feel tension of the 1960’s civil rights movement, cheer for calm and collected Aibileen, cry with the leading lady Skeeter Phelan, laugh with the feisty Minny Jackson, and hate the evil Hilly Holbrook.
It felt real, as all well-written novels should feel. “The Help,” if you haven’t heard, is about a young aspiring author, Skeeter Phelan, who decides to secretly write a book detailing African American maids’ experiences as they work for white families. The book was also recently made into a movie, which I had the pleasure of watching after touring with Wellspring.
I was quite content with the movie. It was directed by a fairly new director, Tate Taylor, who had started writing the screenplay for the movie well before “The Help” even hit the bookstores, when Stockett gave him an early copy of the book.
One thing Taylor did extremely well with filming this story was casting. Viola Davis was casted as Aibileen, the maid to Skeeter’s friend Elizabeth. Davis perfects the character. I found Aibileen to be the hardest character to play, as she appears to be grave and silent, but has protest and a conviction growing within her as the story carries on. I found that witty Emma Stone was the perfect fit for Skeeter Phelan, as was Octavia Spencer for the sassy Minny Jackson. I hated Hilly Holbrook just as much as in the book, if not more, thanks to Bryce Dallas Howard’s performance. My favorite, casting choice though was Jessica Chastain as Celia Foote, whose character is avoided like the plague by all the “respectable” folk of Mississippi. I seemed to remember her performance the most after the movie, as it was spot-on to the character I envisioned while reading the story.
Like many book-adapted movies, there are facts or stories that are left out. In the movie, Constantine’s daughter was black. In the book, Stockett depicts her as a white woman. Even though the father of Constantine’s daughter was also black, the child had lighter skin because Constantine was biracial. This is important to the story and creates added tension as Mrs. Phelan can’t think of a way to support or explain Constantine’s situation to her friends when Constantine’s white daughter surprises her with a visit.
I felt that story lines such as Skeeter’s painful break-up, or the devastation of Mrs. Phelan’s cancer were shortened for the sake of the movie. I admit, it’s a smart move. Taylor knew the emotional roller coaster he was putting his audience through, and I’m sure he didn’t want to press the emotional envelope too far. However, reading the book first made me wish to see some fleshed out story lines that I felt came up a little short in the movie.
“The Help” is still a well-acted, well written, and well made movie. So should you watch it? Yes. Should you read the book first? Most definitely.
