The Help

Tate Taylor’s 2011 film follows a young woman in sixties Mississippi who quietly interviews the Black maids in white households and turns what they say into a book. Most of it was photographed not in Jackson but in the Delta town of Greenwood, and Taylor optioned the novel before publication. Because the engine of the plot is a manuscript, the peaks are kitchen table conversations rather than fights or trials. The tension is entirely verbal: across 146 minutes the riskiest act is somebody agreeing to speak. A second choice is harder to defend: the sharpest cruelties are softened by comedy, and Minny’s pie revenge is built as the biggest laugh in the picture. Octavia Spencer inspired Minny in the novel and voiced her in the audiobook before playing her. The author Kathryn Stockett was sued by Ablene Cooper, who worked for the author’s brother; the case was dismissed on 16 August 2011 under a one year limitation period. Viola Davis told Vanity Fair in 2020 that the part felt like a betrayal of herself and her people. Worth it if you accept a camera that keeps returning to Skeeter’s typewriter while Aibileen’s decisions reach you as testimony given to someone else. Avoid it if you want the largest scene to be Aibileen’s own choice rather than a publication date.