Well-intentioned period drama concerns ‘Skeeter’ Phelan, a young white aspiring writer who interviews black maids working in her town of Jackson, Mississippi in the early 1960s. The aftermath is controversial. Racial unrest is not a subject often taken lightly. However the tone here is certainly much more lighthearted than you would expect. We get a simplified version of civil rights in the 60s. A CliffsNotes primer that sheds precious little insight into the troubling struggles of blacks in the south during this era. Director Tate Taylor’s heart is in the right place. But he does his friend, author Kathryn Stockett, a disservice in adapting her book by reducing the themes to the lowest common denominator. We are pitched a trivialization of good vs. evil to serve a drama that says, racism is bad. It’s an idea presented shallow enough for a 2 year old to follow.
This is a superficial retelling of what life was like in a community governed by the restrictive conditions of Jim Crow laws. These were state and local regulations in the United States enacted between 1876 and 1965 that mandated racial segregation in public facilities, with a supposedly “separate but equal” status for black Americans. In reality, this led to treatment and accommodations that were usually inferior to those provided for white Americans. For anyone born after 1965, it’s hard to believe there was a time when such laws existed. A film granted the urgency this subject deserves, would have been a welcome contribution to the cinematic landscape. Unfortunately we are delivered a glossy, beautifully photographed world with rich digitally enhanced colors. The south portrayed here is decidedly one-dimensional. Apparently white women of the region had little to do besides play bridge and ruin people‘s lives with a carefully worded condemnation. The script asserts this view in each frame with all the subtlety of a four alarm fire. These aren’t people, they’re easily recognizable symbols with intolerant attitudes on race and class.
The most artificial of all is Hilly Holbrook. She is single-minded in promoting her cause, something called the Home Help Sanitation Initiative. In her words it would be “a bill that requires every white home to have a separate bathroom for the colored help.“ She’s not just racially biased. She’s a seething bigot, a sneering caricature without a sensitive bone in her body. The Wicked Witch of the West was played with more restraint in The Wizard of Oz. Why a reactionary woman like Hilly and a forward thinking one like our hero Skeeter, would have been best friends since childhood is a baffling mystery that is never justified. Regardless, Hilly is a galvanizing performance guaranteed to elicit hisses and boos as she smiles sweetly beneath a facade of well manicured hate. Howard gives the part her all, but by making her such a cartoon, we are denied the opportunity of an intelligent indictment of these reprehensible opinions that were institutionalized as law. The character is such an exaggerated depiction, we can only laugh and shake our head at her utter buffoonery.
There are some nice touches. Actress Viola Davis is mesmerizing as put-upon maid, Aibileen Clark. Davis is a powerhouse of acting talent. She brings a nuance to every line she utters even when the script fails her. She wrings genuine emotion from those words with a distinction and grace that is missing in the picture. Her experience feels real and when she finally reaches her breaking point, it emerges from honest pain. By and large, the maids are more fully formed individuals than the rest of the regrettable lot. In particular, the plot demonstrates the black maids are still capable of raising white children with affection despite being humiliated on a daily basis. Also in another more upbeat scene, social outcast Celia Foote appeals to maid Minny Jackson for cooking help due to her lack of homemaking skills. As played by actresses Jessica Chastain and Octavia Spencer respectively, they breathe life into these roles and their performances are memorable. Minny teaches an amusing first lesson about Crisco, “the most important invention in the kitchen since jarred mayonnaise.”
The story ultimately attempts to tackle too many issues in a sanitized manner without doing justice to any of them . Race relations is the main focus, but it’s hardly the only topic the movie addresses. Negligent mothers, abusive husbands, social classes among whites, self esteem, sexism, and strained mother daughter relationships are all touched upon throughout the long 137 minute running time. Simplistic and clichéd, there are few surprises here. The journey is surprisingly conventional. The good people roll their eyes whenever something prejudiced is uttered. Then someone gets their revenge. Cue laughs, applause and the Mary J. Blige song on the soundtrack. The situation largely remains unchanged for everyone, everyone except for perhaps white writer, Skeeter. In fact life actually threatens to get worse for the maids because of her work. The history of the deep south during the early 60s deserves a much more detailed examination than the cursory simplification presented here. If not for Viola Davis’ heartfelt and sincere performance, the film would have been utterly lacking in depth.
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