Movie Review: The Help

If you've read The Help, you must go see this movie! Here's the website's synopsis:

Based on one of the most talked about books in years and a #1 New York Times best-selling phenomenon, “The Help” stars Emma Stone (“Easy A”) as Skeeter, Academy Award®–nominated Viola Davis (“Doubt”) as Aibileen and Octavia Spencer as Minny—three very different, extraordinary women in Mississippi during the 1960s, who build an unlikely friendship around a secret writing project that breaks societal rules and puts them all at risk. From their improbable alliance a remarkable sisterhood emerges, instilling all of them with the courage to transcend the lines that define them, and the realization that sometimes those lines are made to be crossed —even if it means bringing everyone in town face-to-face with the changing times. Deeply moving, filled with poignancy, humor and hope, “The Help” is a timeless and universal story about the ability to create change.

If I were you, I would read the book first. But I love to compare books to movies, usually to my disappointment. Everyone knows the only truly good book-to-movie couple, To Kill a Mockingbird. All other book-to-movie couples have to attempt to be that good. My usual problem with going from books to movies is the casting. It's a big annoyance for me. The latest series to do this is Twilight. Amongst other problems, their casting annoyed the crap out of me. I wouldn't have casted half of those people in their films. But no one asked me of course.

But I think they casted The Help excellently. I was kind of apprehensive of Emma Stone being Skeeter, but only minutes into the movie, Emma was Skeeter.

They of course left out a few parts of the book, but nothing too obvious. And it's hard to fit a whole book into a 2 hour movie. All in all, I loved it. Definitely a movie I will be buying.