Review of The Help, directed by Taylor Tate

A while ago, in the COVID pandemic when everything was closed in the United States, my sister and I decided to spend more time together by watching movies every night. We would pick out a movie, then sit together on our living room couches watching through it. It’s not like we had anywhere else to go during this time.

We got through a lot of movies during this period, and a lot of them were from her personal movie collection. The Help is something she picked about halfway through our time, which ended once more stuff started opening back up my sister abandoned me for hanging out with her friends.

She owned a copy of this movie, hence why we picked it that night. I had always heard about the book, but never bothered to pick it up, and her it was her pick. My first comment though is I can kind of see how this aged poorly in the long run, though.

Let’s get into the review!

A white journalist tries to expose how Black domestic workers are treated in the South.

Our period in this movie is 1963, and one of our main protagonists is Aibileen, who works for a wealthy white woman, Elizabeth, in Jackson, Mississippi. She balances her work for the socialite along with basically raising the woman’s daughter, Mae, for her.

Her best friend, Minny, works for another rich white family, which features Hilly Holbrook, a nasty woman who is the head of the socialite group in town. We meet Eugenia, or Skeeter, not long after these lovely women. A white woman who just graduated from college, she’s looking for a job and is back in town.

Skeeter lands a gig where she writes about housekeeping throughout the town, but as she sees how these domestic workers and maids are treated by their employers, she’s horrified at the systemic racism happening throughout this city. Hilly is on a new agenda in the meantime: she wants separate bathrooms for whites, and she wants it to be codified within the city.

As Skeeter’s own mother tells her that their maid quit, she doesn’t believe her mother and decides her calling is to interview the maids and expose the open elephant in the room here in Jackson. First, Hilly fires Minny after catching her using the same bathroom, despite Minny having a legitimate reason.

Hilly then ruins any job prospects for Milly, smearing her by saying she stole from her, and then Milly’s own daughter has to give up school to help support the family. Another woman in town, who has been cast out by the socialites, decides to hire Minny; her name is Celia.

Minny and Celia bond over discussing their marriages and Hilly, and Celia treats Minny like she’s a real human being. Minny and Aibileen then decide to talk to Skeeter and tell her about their experiences. Skeeter’s editor tells her that she needs more interviews for the book, but other maids might be afraid of coming forward.

Skeeter then talks to Hilly herself for a piece on the bathrooms, but purposely botches it. At the same time, she gets a new maid, Yule, who asks for money in advance. Yule really needs the money, so she pawns a ring she found under a sofa in the house, and is then arrested after Hilly goes to the police about it.

More maids then come forward to Skeeter after Medgar Evans is killed, and they begin to wonder how they can keep all of these women anonymous. Minny then reveals that she gave Hilly one of her famous chocolate pies, but actually had pooped in it. She told Hilly after she ate two slices, and Hilly’s mother sent her mother to a nursing home for finding it funny.

Skeeter confronts her mother, who reveals she fired their old maid because her daughter had refused to enter through the kitchen. She later died in Chicago, which breaks Skeeter’s heart. She publishes her column called “The Help", then shares the proceeds with all of the maids.

However, there are ramifications. Skeeter’s boyfriend breaks up with her when he realizes she is the author, and Hilly panics about what is published in the paper. She then backs down specifically once she realizes she’d have to admit she ate the pie with feces in it. Skeeter’s mother then kicks Hilly off the property when she shows up to complain.

Celia’s husband promises Minny a permanent job, and she can now leave behind her husband. Skeeter is offered a job in New York and is told to take it by the women. Elizabeth fires Aibileen after Hilly insists on it, and she decides to quit her life as a domestic worker and become a writer.

Overall Thoughts

As a movie, this is pretty solid. There’s a keen sense of satisfaction especially when we see Hilly eat that pie, and Howard plays that character so well. We can’t help but to hate her with everything going on.

That said, this isn’t the right kind of movie if you want to learn more about the period. It’s a white savior story at the end of the day, and it’s very much centered in her perspective. If it was solely centered on the Black maids and their perspectives, maybe this would have turned out differently.

We need to think critically about film, even when we think we’re being helpful. I think this film is tricky because it was probably made with good intentions, but it falls short of what it needs to be. It’s set in the sixties, but only Medgar Evans is really brought up. That’s a glaring aspect of the film to me.

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