The Help, is in my opinion, easily one of the best movies ever made in the last decade. I adored the book and hoped the movie would live up to my expectations. It lived up to them and more! The movie is set in Jackson during the 1960's and tells the story of Skeeter, a college graduate who teams up with the maids of Jackson, also referred to as "The Help" to write about their experiences working for white, and often racist, families.
The acting is tour-de-force. Each performance is Oscar-worthy and I feel it's safe to say Octavia Spencer should make some room that statue! Another mention goes to Bryce Dallas Howard who's wickedness shines throughout the movie as the racist, melicous Miss Hilly.
This movie deserves all the praise it can get and more! A true acting master class with a wonderful, touching, heart warming story.

I just got back from a special-screening of "The Help" at my local movie theatre, so I thought that I might as well do a review for all of you who are wanting to see this movie when it comes out.

Now, first off, I must admit that I have only read a portion of the book, but I definitely do know a lot about it. After watching the trailer, I was intrigued, so of course, I visited the IMDb boards to learn more about it. At first glance, the casting caught my attention big-time. Emma Stone as 'Skeeter'? I bet most people were as shocked as I was to find out that she was cast as the main character -- but let me tell you what: the casting was superb! I could not have chosen a better cast than what was already chosen. There was amazing chemistry between both the antagonists and protagonists. I won't go into too much depth about the characters, but for me, Emma Stone, Jessica Chastain, Sissy Spacek, and Octavia Spencer were the shining stars of the movie.

Casting: 9.5/10 I know that there has been an on-going issue about this movie from a lot of people claiming that "the blacks had to be 'saved' by the whites" (pardon the language), or something along those lines. I have to agree that the trailer does give off that type of vibe -- Skeeter saving the colored-folks -- however, the movie tells and depicts otherwise - the colored-folks actually saved themselves. Minny and Aibileen, as well as the other colored-folks in the community, were the real "heroes" of the movie; they just needed someone to push them to their potential (Skeeter).

I can not remember the last time I saw a movie that inspired me, made me cry, made me laugh, and made me sad, angry, and hopeful, all at the same time -- this is what "The Help" strides and aims for, without making it "cheesy". Without a doubt in my mind, there are definitely Oscar-worthy performances in this movie. Not only does this movie depict just the colored-folks' side of the story, but it also equally shows the feelings of the white-folks, as well. So, you definitely get both sides of the story without it being more or less "mean" or "degrading" to any sides.

There are definitely a few awkward moments in the movie, but what movie doesn't have them? This movie started around 7:10 and ended around 9:20 -- about 2 hours and 10 minutes, give or take, if my calculations are correct. However, this movie only felt like it was an hour-long. It was so good that I didn't even know the two hours passed by until the theatre lights lid and the rolling credits began.

All in all, this is a DEFINITELY-MUST-SEE movie. I personally believe that it is one of the best movies of 2011. Go see it -- you will not regret it. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

Very good movie. The acting was great. I only have one complaint. I think that they could have gone a little deeper with the stories that the "help" told. I am sure that back in the days, the maids had stories to tell that were illegal, immoral, embarrassing and juicy. Overall, it was worth watching. On a scale of 1-10, I'd give it an 8.

A touching story about life in late 50's missisippi, for some black maids and the families that employed them during the beginnings of the civil rights movement. The maids endure bigotism, cruelty, and indifference from their female masters in a variety of ways which are recounted in chilling detail. Amidst this strife are also tales of redemption and revenge to remind us that life is rarely black and white. While the stories are delivered with insight and humour, this serves to make some of the abuses even more shocking. We are reminded that people capable of abusing others sometimes abuse and neglect their own as well. Shocking & Heartwarming. [ 8/10 ]

Bring out the Oscars. This movie will be one for the taking. Supression in a world of opression. We in America fight the fight of racism daily. This movie takes you behind the scenes and shows you the other side. The side where hurt and feelings are suppressed in order to serve "the man". The sacrfices the help endured and put themselves through for "the man'. A touchy subject for most painted in a simple manner with laughter, hurt and joy. A movie for the family and heart. One word to describe this movie would be Unforgetable.

I loved this movie !!! There was alot of sassy commentary and witty comebacks. This movie kills two birds with one stone (metaphorically) by adressing women independence and the african american life and living. This movie is truely a classic for all to see! I would not reccommend to eat pie during the movie and if you watch it you will see why! This movie that is set in around the 60s or 70s is warming to the pit of your stomach.

THE HELP IS SIMPLY ONE OF THE BEST MOVIE FOR 2011. YOU WILL DEFINITELY LAUGH, THE CAST OF THE MOVIE WORKS WELL TOGETHER. I NEVER KNEW THAT THIS WAS HOW MAIDS WERE TREATED BACK IN THOSE TIMES. THE HELP SHOWS RACISM, HATRED AND ALSO A SPECIAL BOND BETWEEN THE MAIDS. THE CAKE SCENE LITERALLY HAD ME ON THE FLOOR IN STITCHES. ONE OF THE BEST MOVIES OF THE YEAR, GIVE IT A WATCH YOU WILL ENJOY IT.

It's often been noted that before the civil rights era, the American South, while more racist than the North, was in one way more enlightened: Even at the vicious height of Jim Crow, blacks and whites coexisted with a casual and enduring day-to-day intimacy. They'd been living intertwined lives, after all, since the days of slavery. The Help, an emotionally enveloping, sharply alive big-canvas adaptation of Kathryn Stockett's powerful 2009 novel, is rooted in that truth more deeply than just about any Hollywood movie I can name. It understands that the ''separation'' of the races in the South wasn't just a crime — it was a grand illusion.

Early on, Aibileen Clark (Viola Davis), grave and solid, with a look so impassive it takes you a moment to see the silent protest in her eyes, tells us that she's a maid just like her mother, and that her grandmother was a house slave. It's 1961, and the matter-of-fact way that she delivers that information is startling, because she's really telling us that she's a house slave too. She's just called by a different title. She also says that she has raised 17 white children, so that's another way that the word maid seems inadequate. She's a nanny — and in many ways, a surrogate mother.

Set in Jackson, Miss. — the middle-class heart of the Deep South — The Help is Aibileen's story, and it's also the story of her best friend, Minny (Octavia Spencer), a pixie-faced rascal of a housekeeper/cook who's as feisty and contemptuous as Aibileen is circumspect. Davis and Spencer are both brilliant, etching these women's hopes and broken dreams with every line, and between the lines, too. The film is also about their comrades, and about the women they work for — a group of eager, perky housewives (they're like Southern-fried Betty Drapers) who are just the sort of bridge-club-and-benefit types that the movies love to caricature.

Yet one of the scrupulous pleasures of The Help is that there isn't a caricature in it. Every woman on screen is fresh, live, and three-dimensional, whether it's Elizabeth (Ahna O'Reilly), the girlish conformist who cedes her motherly duties, including nurturing, to Aibileen; Hilly (Bryce Dallas Howard), the snarling princess and out-of-the-closet racist who thinks that by forcing Minny to use a bathroom out back, she's preserving the cause of racial harmony (she's keeping everything in its place); or Celia (Jessica Chastain), the flaky, lost, Marilyn-esque white-trash rich girl who hires Minny on the sly. In The Help, the issue of the bathroom becomes nearly mythic — the domestic equivalent of lunch counters and the back of the bus. Bryce Dallas Howard, playing the soul of what had to be changed, gives a fearless performance, her smile treacherous, her eyes awake to every nuance of subservience (from her maid, and her friends, too).

Hilly's old cohort, just returned from college, is Skeeter Phelan (Emma Stone), who has already outgrown this circle but isn't quite sure where to turn. She takes a job at the Jackson Journal, doing a cleaning-advice column, and since she knows nothing about housework, she decides to get notes from Aibileen. That, in part, is what spurs Skeeter to do a book of interviews with the maids of Jackson, telling the story of Southern domestic life from their point of view. The book is dangerous to write, and ends up causing quite a stir, and that's the film's main motor. I've loved Stone as a wide-eyed comic sprite, but here, playing a young woman more no-nonsense than anyone around her, she doesn't just sparkle — she holds the movie together. Pestering her mother (Allison Janney) to tell her why Constantine, the family maid of 29 years, was mysteriously let go, she makes you feel everything that maid meant to her. And Cicely Tyson, in flashbacks, makes Constantine, with her speech impediment, so vulnerable yet squinchy-eloquent that your heart breaks for her.

The Help has a saucy, humorous side. The film turns on a hilariously vengeful incident in which Minny delivers a very just dessert to Hilly. After a while, though, the humiliation wrung out of that moment becomes overkill. The Help was written and directed by Tate Taylor, who is not a film artist (I kept trying to imagine what Robert Altman might have done with this ensemble), yet he keeps hitting full, sturdy notes of straight-down-the-middle emotion. The movie isn't perfect; it sometimes shows its stitching. But mostly it's a stirring salute to subjugated women who hold their heads high. A-

I cannot recommend this film enough. It is truly one of the best book adaptions of this century. It doesn't do what many films that were originally books do which is to sway heavily from the main plot in order to more 'Hollywood appropriate' and in the process lose the support of the novel's fans. The casting is brilliant, I am surprised more Oscars were not won/nominated. Emma Stone shows she can do a more serious role and absolutely kills it. Octavia Spencer was fantastic and I couldn't be happier that she won an Academy Award for her performance. All actors were fantastic. A brilliant homage to a brilliant book. A MUST SEE!

I really had my doubts about this movie, fearing that it would be another typical "white messiah helps African Americans in need" film. And, while there are some elements of that in here, thankfully, the film shows that the whites need help from the blacks, too, so it's not a one sided affair.Set in the early 1960s in Jackson, Mississippi, the story follows Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan, a recent college grad who, instead of hunting for a husband, wants to embark on a career as a writer. Inspired by her own upbringing and disgusted by the racism of her colleagues and friends she'd lost touch with, she decides to write about racial issues from the perspective of the help- the maids who spend their lives raising white children who sadly tend to grow up to be just like their parents. Along the way, the film touches upon some really big issues, and gets into various facets of the time period during this volatile era. It's a noble and well meaning film, but, it still plays it safe and sugar coated for the most part. Oh sure, there are some times when it gets edgy, but ultimately the film fails to be as powerful as it should be since it doesn't take that many risks. Also, it doesn't help that it tries to do soo much, but handles it all by just glossing over thngs and painting with broad strokes. The film gets the pont across of course, but the scholar in me can't help but take issue with the end result. Maybe had the script been more risky, less Hollywood, less feel good, and more concerned with why this era and all the minutae of race relations are so volatile, the end result could have been more powerful. That, and making it a miniseries to really flesh out the details and characterizations wouldn't have hurt, either.I will defend this film though, because it at least tries to be important, even if it doesn't quite do it in the best way. That, and the acting is wonderful (for the most part), with some really great moments, and a decent balance between humor and heartbreaking. Indeed, this is a moving film, and I admittedly did tear up multiple times...just like I was supposed to.Emma Stone is great as Skeeter, showing her range as an actress, with a solid turn in a rahter thankless role. Bryce Dalls Howard shines as the malevolently vile and racist socialite ringleader Hilly, although the part is written so cartoonishly, the one dimensionalness of the character takes off the edge and insight needed to make her seem like a real character. Still though, Howard sells it nicely. Jessica Chastain, as the outcast naive socialite with a white trash background is tricky. She seems cartoony at first, but Chastain's performance saves things, and the character does actually become one to care about, though some of the pandering is a bit uncomfortable. The real stars and emotional core of the film though, are Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer. They are the true focus of the film, and provide the strongest performances. They are the ones we care about the most, and the accolades they got were well deserved. Both Davis and Spencer got Oscar nods (with Spencer winning), and despite Spike Lee missing the point, this is a high point for the world of African American thespians. As much as I loved these two, especially Spencer, who steals both the dramatic and comedic scenes, I think my favortie performer had to be Sissy Spacek as Hilly's mother- a character who really draws some of the best non Spencer generated laughs. Okay, so I've rambled on for quite a while with this one. I can't help it. Films like these just bring it out in me, and it's easy to get worked up with materia llike this. I'm giving this film extra credit for the cast, cinematography, performances, and nobleness of it all, though I just wish that people would be more fearless when dealing with material like this, no matter how painful or incendiary.

Incredibly touching. A stupendous film elaborating immense sense of sentiment and understanding to how 'the help' were persevered at a time of great dealership. An exquisite movie with a large sense of sympathy towards the characters. A definitely must see film. Perfection at its must. Filled with heart and laughter.

it was a boring film would NEVER watch it again! Jesus Christ. But i wouldn't recommend it to anyone under 30 because they probably wouldn't enjoy it at all and it's not even worth 1 pound on or blu-ray. thankyou for reading. yours sincerely Luke007 bye. p.s whoever likes it is weird.