The Help

 

The Help 2011

• Director: Tate Taylor
• Cast: Viola Davis, Emma Stone, Octavia Spencer, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jessica Chastain, Allison Janney, Cicely Tyson, Sissy Spacek
• Why? The cast
• Seen: 9 July 2026  

 

          Skeeter (Stone) is young, rich, white and ambitious. She wants to write, seriously, unlike her ditsy rich white friends, who are all married mums, and mean. And racist.

          Skeeter decides to write about the black maids. Reluctantly Aibeleen (Davis) and Minny (Spencer) agree to help. This is dangerous, for blacks and whites both, but especially for the blacks.

          It could have been a ‘white-liberal-do-gooder-saves-the-poor-black-maids’ film but it succeeds in not being that. Primarily because of the superb acting.

 

4* of 5