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The Help

The Help (2011)

tomatometer

76

Average Rating: 7/10
Reviews Counted: 196
Fresh: 149 | Rotten: 47

Though arguably guilty of glossing over its racial themes, The Help rises on the strength of its cast -- particularly Viola Davis, whose performance is powerful enough to carry the film on its own.

68

Average Rating: 7.2/10
Critic Reviews: 40
Fresh: 27 | Rotten: 13

Though arguably guilty of glossing over its racial themes, The Help rises on the strength of its cast -- particularly Viola Davis, whose performance is powerful enough to carry the film on its own.

audience

90

liked it
Average Rating: 4.2/5
User Ratings: 60,179

My Rating

Movie Info

The Help stars Emma Stone as Skeeter, Viola Davis 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

PG-13, 2 hr. 17 min.

Drama

Tate Taylor

Dec 6, 2011

$169.7M

DreamWorks Studios

The Help Trailer & Photos

More Photos (55)
More Trailers and Videos (18)

Cast

Critic Reviews for The Help

All Critics (196) | Top Critics (40) | Fresh (151) | Rotten (47) | DVD (7)

"The Help" takes us on a pop-cultural tour that savors the picturesque, and strengthens stereotypes it purports to shatter.

August 11, 2011 Full Review Source: Wall Street Journal | Comments (50)
Joe Morgenstern
Wall Street Journal
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Thanks to a talented cast -- starting with leads Emma Stone, Viola Davis​ and Octavia Spencer​ -- the movie is often entertaining. But The Help should have been challenging too.

August 11, 2011 Full Review Source: Denver Post | Comments (6)
Lisa Kennedy
Denver Post
Top Critic IconTop Critic

As in many reductive period pieces, there are no real characters here, just archetypes, namely reactionary cretins and sensitive souls who anticipate modern attitudes.

August 11, 2011 Full Review Source: Chicago Reader | Comments (18)
Ben Sachs
Chicago Reader
Top Critic IconTop Critic

The Help is a high-functioning tearjerker, but the catharsis it offers feels glib and insufficient, a Barbie Band-Aid on the still-raw wound of race relations in America.

August 11, 2011 Full Review Source: Slate | Comments (21)
Dana Stevens
Slate
Top Critic IconTop Critic

[The Help] is, in some ways, crude and obvious, but it opens up a broad new swath of experience on the screen, and parts of it are so moving and well acted that any objections to what's second-rate seem to matter less as the movie goes on.

August 10, 2011 Full Review Source: New Yorker | Comments (3)
David Denby
New Yorker
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Appalling, entertaining, touching and perhaps even a bit healing, The Help is an old-fashioned grand yarn of a film, the sort we rarely get these days.

August 10, 2011 Full Review Source: Detroit News | Comments (2)
Tom Long
Detroit News
Top Critic IconTop Critic

La película realmente triunfa en la exploración de la complicidad y solidaridad que se establece entre mujeres solas, quebradas, necesitadas de oportunidades e inconformes con los moldes sociales preestablecidos.

January 10, 2012 Full Review Source: Uruguay Total | Comment
Enrique Buchichio
Uruguay Total

I found it surprisingly enjoyable. And I suppose that's the greatest compliment I could give the film: I didn't hate it, even if I was dreading it going in.

January 7, 2012 Full Review Source: 7M Pictures | Comment
Kevin Carr
7M Pictures

A quiet but powerful film that really does have Oscar written all over it.

December 29, 2011 Full Review Source: Movie Metropolis | Comment
James Plath
Movie Metropolis

Aimed at heart and conscience, novel and film have their overdone moments but remain worthy of close attention.

December 24, 2011 Full Review Source: ReelTalk Movie Reviews | Comment
Donald J. Levit
ReelTalk Movie Reviews

Brimming with believable, likeable women characters and set against the turbulence of Mississippi in the 1960s, 'The Help' is almost as good as Kathryn Stockett's novel.

December 22, 2011 Full Review Source: KWQC-TV (Iowa) | Comment
Linda Cook
KWQC-TV (Iowa)

how the novel came to be published against all odds, the film to be made with Taylor as director, once known become integral to the film experience. Perfectly written, acted, directed, and produced, it's as moving on its fiftieth viewing as on its first.

December 13, 2011 Full Review Source: Killer Movie Reviews | Comment
Andrea Chase
Killer Movie Reviews

"The Help" is refreshing and possibly the best film of the year.

December 9, 2011 Full Review Source: Entertainment Spectrum | Comment
Jolene Mendez
Entertainment Spectrum Source: Entertainment Spectrum

Disney ably delivers a machine-tooled Blu-ray presentation of The Help, a delicious confection about the Southern matriarchy, set against the burgeoning civil rights movement, with a secret ingredient: shit.

December 6, 2011 Full Review Source: Slant Magazine | Comment (1)
Jaime N. Christley
Slant Magazine

To "the help," the possibility of the children growing up as clones of their parents isn't a consideration. It's all about loving the innocent. But, it's a dilemma.

November 24, 2011 Full Review Source: Cinema Signals | Comment
Jules Brenner
Cinema Signals

This is a generally family-friendly affair which isn't interested in getting its hands too dirty.

November 11, 2011 Full Review Source: Fan The Fire | Comment
Martin Roberts
Fan The Fire

Some will scoff that it covers familiar territory or that the message should have been angrier and louder...but there is beauty in its lack of heavy handed sermonizing.

November 8, 2011 Full Review Source: Spectrum (St. George, Utah) | Comment
Bruce Bennett
Spectrum (St. George, Utah)

As hard to dislike as it is to truly admire, this artfully manipulative issue movie knows where its strengths lie... and most of them lie in Viola Davis.

November 1, 2011 Full Review Source: Film4 | Comment (1)
Film4 Source: Film4

A faithful, heart-warming adaptation that will satisfy fans of the book, divert the uninitiated and tickle the Academy's fancy.

October 31, 2011 Full Review Source: Total Film | Comment
Jane Crowther
Total Film

The movie is facile, not a little patronising, and it ends up as crude and sentimental.

October 30, 2011 Full Review Source: Observer [UK] | Comments (2)
Philip French
Observer [UK]

This coming of age tale is deeply affecting, magnificently acted and truly enlightening ... are truly inspirational women who are an absolute joy to spend time with.

October 29, 2011 Full Review Source: Real.com | Comment
Lisa Giles-Keddie
Real.com Source: Real.com

I was disappointed at the end to realize the picture was fiction not fact but perhaps that's a tribute to the authenticity writer-director Tate Taylor achieves in this beautifully realized picture.

October 29, 2011 Full Review Source: Daily Express | Comment
Henry Fitzherbert
Daily Express

The running time of 146 minutes takes too much wind out of Aibileen's sails, but her tear-jerking dignity in the denouement is marvellous to behold.

October 28, 2011 Full Review Source: Birmingham Mail | Comment
Graham Young
Birmingham Mail Source: Birmingham Mail

There are some magnificent elements here... The downside is the mawkishness and the rambling narrative structure.

October 28, 2011 Full Review Source: Independent | Comment
Geoffrey Macnab
Independent

It tackles a challenging, inflammatory subject in the corniest, safest way possible.

October 28, 2011 Full Review Source: This is London | Comment
David Sexton
This is London
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for The Help

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Cast: Emma Stone, Viola Davis, Bryce Dallas Howard, Octavia Spencer, Jessica Chastain, Ahna O'Reilly, Allison Janney, Anna Camp, Cicely Tyson, Mike Vogel, Sissy Spacek Director: Tate Taylor Summary: In 1960s Jackson, Miss., aspiring writer Eugenia Phelan crosses taboo racial lines by conversing with Aibileen Clark

January 12, 2011
LWOODS04
♥˩ƳИИ ƜѲѲƉƧ♥

Super Reviewer

Viola Davis has only one scene in the movie, "Doubt." It's not a very long scene, but it is the entire crux of that film. In her few short minutes in front of the camera, Davis delivers the heart and soul of her character. It is a scene that should be studied in every acting school. Now, she plays the lead, Aibileen,

February 15, 2012
MovieGeek13
E.J. Boxler

Super Reviewer

The Help Quotes

View All

    1. Aibileen: No one had ever asked me, what it felt like to be me. Once I told the truth about that, I felt free.
    – Submitted by Raj G (30 days ago)
    1. Aibileen: God says we need to love our enemies. It's hard to do, but it can start by telling the truth.
    – Submitted by Raj G (30 days ago)
    1. Elaine Stein: Eugenia, Martin Luther King just invited the entire country to march with him in DC in august. This many negros and whites have not worked together since 'Gone With The Wind'.
    – Submitted by Raj G (30 days ago)
    1. Aibileen: Minny, we're rich!
    – Submitted by Raj G (30 days ago)
    1. Minny Jackson: You're a fool, woman. You're a fool!
    – Submitted by Maria H (31 days ago)

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  • Criadas y seņoras (ES)
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