The issue of racial integration is ever-present and it certainly serves as a reminder of how far America has come to vote for a black President.
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12/05/08
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The Secret Life of Bees (2008)
58
%
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Reviews Counted:134
Fresh:78
Rotten:56
Average Rating:5.9/10
Consensus: The Secret Life of Bees has moments of charm, but is largely too maudlin and sticky-sweet.
Theatrical Release:Oct 17, 2008 Wide
Box Office: $37,665,012
Synopsis: THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES, based on the New York Times best selling novel and set in South Carolina in 1964, is the moving tale of Lily Owens (Fanning) a 14 year-old girl who is haunted by the memory... [More]
Starring: Queen Latifah, Dakota Fanning, Jennifer Hudson, Alicia Keys
Director: Gina Prince-Bythewood
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Reviews for The Secret Life of Bees
A god-awful chick flick about black women bonding in a sugary, never-never South. It should be renamed How to Make an American Wilt (and any other viewer).
12/05/08
This ghastly ode to female companionship apparently derives from a bestselling novel, but it feels more like something stitched together from other sorority movies.
12/05/08
The casting is fine, but the film’s strange and potentially heartening story desperately needs a bolder touch.
12/05/08
Engaging, well made and impressively acted, this is essentially a coming of age chick flick with a slightly rougher edge than usual.
12/05/08
While this film is every bit as warm and emotional as it looks, ... the cast make sure things don't get too sugary.
12/05/08
Based on the novel by Sue Monk Kidd, the tale will poach your heart this cold winter.
12/04/08
Prince-Bythewood largely stays away from grandiloquent gestures designed to manipulate audience emotions, relying instead on sound storytelling and a set of accomplished performers to punch across the story's humanist appeal.
11/26/08
Three actors bring out the script's darkness with remarkable skill. The rest of the cast is good, but they settle for easier performances
11/21/08
Irreverence and cynicism may be the dominant themes of the day, but surely there's a place for a film with the timeless virtues of The Secret Life of Bees.
11/15/08
The Secret Life of Bees should have billed itself as a fairy tale, as that's the only possible way to swallow what Prince-Bythewood and Kidd are feeding us.
11/08/08
maudlin pap
11/01/08
A patently false but supremely satisfying Sisterhood Picture.
10/30/08
Fanning continues to be an amazing actress even as she ages.
10/27/08
May's wailing wall appears repeatedly in Gina Prince-Blythewood's The Secret Life of Bees, each time an invitation to reflect, to remember what was and hope for what might be.
10/27/08
The melodrama, and Mark Isham's score, are as thick and as sticky as August's honey, but not nearly as sweet.
10/24/08
Well, you'd have to expect a movie with the name 'The Secret Life of Bees' to be overly sweet, wouldn't you?
10/23/08
The filmmakers give Latifah and Fanning room to create characters that breathe in the sweet smell of clover and breathe out the contented sigh of independence.
10/23/08
Top CriticAll in all, Bees gets more right than wrong, making it worth a look.
10/22/08
A perfectly cast movie that is better than the book on which it was based
10/21/08
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