The Help (2011)
Average Rating: 7/10
Reviews Counted: 198
Fresh: 151 | 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.
Average Rating: 7/10
Critic Reviews: 43
Fresh: 29 | Rotten: 14
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.
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Average Rating: 4.2/5
User Ratings: 85,534
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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
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Cast
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Viola Davis
Aibileen, Aibileen Clar... -
Emma Stone
Skeeter, Skeeter Phelan -
Bryce Dallas Howard
Hilly Holbrook -
Octavia L. Spencer
Minny Jackson -
Jessica Chastain
Celia Foote, Celia Foot... -
Ahna O'Reilly
Elizabeth Leefolt -
Allison Janney
Charlotte Phelan -
Anna Camp
Jolene French -
Eleanor Henry
Mae Mobley -
Emma Henry
Mae Mobley -
Chris Lowell
Stuart Whitworth -
Cicely Tyson
Lila Rogers -
Mike Vogel
Johnny Foote -
Sissy Spacek
Missus Walters, Mrs. Wa... -
Brian Kerwin
Robert Phelan -
Wes Chatham
Carlton Phelan -
Aunjanue Ellis
Yule Mae Davis -
Ted Welch
William Holbrook -
Shane McRae
Raleigh Leefolt -
Roslyn Ruff
Pascagoula -
Tarra Riggs
Gretchen -
Leslie Jordan
Mr. Blackly -
Mary Steenburgen
Elaine Stein -
Tiffany Brouwer
Rebecca -
Carol Lee
Pearly -
Carol Sutton
Cora -
Millicent Bolton
Callie -
Ashley Johnson
Mary Beth Caldwell -
Ritchie Montgomery
Bus Driver -
Constantine Jefferson
Young Skeeter
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The Help Trailer & Photos
All Critics (198) | Top Critics (43) | Fresh (154) | Rotten (47) | DVD (8)
Yes, it gets a bit sentimental. Yes, some 'Ya-Ya Sisterhood' friendship clichés creep in. Yes, it glosses history. But it's also heartfelt, hilarious and the cast is a dream-team topped by Viola Davis.
Top Critic"The Help" takes us on a pop-cultural tour that savors the picturesque, and strengthens stereotypes it purports to shatter.
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.
As in many reductive period pieces, there are no real characters here, just archetypes, namely reactionary cretins and sensitive souls who anticipate modern attitudes.
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.
[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.
Outstanding performances and a delicate approach to racial tensions make this film a cut above other inspirational period dramas.
Transcends its comfort-food-for-Oprah's Book Club wrapping to get at something deeper, the gray in a story that seems so far removed as to be utterly black and white."
Octavia Spencer's Minny provides the movie's funniest moments, especially when she gets her own back on former employer Hilly with an audacious reprisal that proves that revenge is indeed a dish best served cold.
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.
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.
A quiet but powerful film that really does have Oscar written all over it.
Aimed at heart and conscience, novel and film have their overdone moments but remain worthy of close attention.
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.
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.
"The Help" is refreshing and possibly the best film of the year.
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.
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.
This is a generally family-friendly affair which isn't interested in getting its hands too dirty.
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.
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.
A faithful, heart-warming adaptation that will satisfy fans of the book, divert the uninitiated and tickle the Academy's fancy.
The movie is facile, not a little patronising, and it ends up as crude and sentimental.
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.
Audience Reviews for The Help
Super Reviewer
Super Reviewer
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- Hilly Holbrook: What are you tryin' to do to me? What are you and that nigra up to?
- Celia Foote: I don't know what you're talkin' about.
- Hilly Holbrook: You liar! Who did you tell?.
- Celia Foote: Hilly, I got pregnant after you and Johnny broke up!
- Missus Walters: Oh, shit!
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- Minny Jackson: I gotta make sure she understands that expression.
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- Aibileen Clark: I didn't steal no silver.
- Hilly Holbrook: Maybe I can't send you to jail for what you wrote but I can send you for bein' a thief!
- Aibileen Clark: I know somethin' about you, don't you forget that! From what Yule Mae says, there's a lot a time to write letters in jail. Plenty of time to write the truth about you. And the paper is free.
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- Charlotte Phelan: [sees Skeeter talking on the phone with Ms. Elaine Stain from New York City as she opens the door] Skeeter, who are you talkin' to in there.
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- Skeeter Phelan: [on the phone with Ms. Elaine Stain from New York City] I'd like to write somethin' the the help.
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- Skeeter Phelan: [to Stuart] I'm sorry, but you were droppin' your head as an infant or were you just born stupid?
Discussion Forum
| Topic | Last Post | Replies |
|---|---|---|
| brilliant film | 49 days ago | 1 |
| Why does Hilly acts like that? | 3 months ago | 2 |
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Foreign Titles
- La Couleur des sentiments (FR)
- Criadas y señoras (ES)
This is an incredible film that not only pays justice to the bestseller on which it's based (according to those who have read the book AND seen the film), but is phenomenally cast, with exceptional performances by Viola Davis, Emma Stone, Octavia Spencer, Bryce Dallas Howard and Allison Janney. Veteran actresses Sissy Spacek and Cicely Tyson also deliver incredible performances. While Tyson's character is central to the storyline, her role comprises what seems to be a few, precious minutes of the 2:20 running time, she delivers, in my opinion, one of the most powerful and moving moments in the film...one in which she doesn't even utter a line (trust me, you'll know when you see it.)
The Help also delivers some very funny moments and will make you laugh. I'll go so far as to say that this film and a few of its cast members will draw some Oscar nominations. I certainly think this takes Stone into a whole new level.
The racial imbalances of 1963 are well illustrated in "The Help," and will, no doubt, underscore how far America has come,.Either way, this is a powerful movie that needs to be seen.. 5 stars . 4=20=13