Even nowadays, it always seems to be the traditional movie that wins the Oscar. Even when the challenger is a uniquely American story of an American kid who invented the website that revolutionized world culture from an American point of view (The Social Network), the Best Picture Oscar goes to the more traditional underdog-makes-good story of the British king who overcomes his speech impediment. The same thing will happen this year. Though the better, more moving, more surprising film of the year is The Descendants, the top Oscar will likely go to The Help.
The Descendants, like much of director Alexander Payne's work, is the story of an unexceptional man who is nonetheless a good person, trying to do the best he can. George Clooney plays Matt King, a Hawaii lawyer who's actually a rich landowner, but insists that he and his children should work for their money anyway. However, thanks to his work ethic, he hasn't gotten much of a chance to be a father to his two daughters (Shailene Woodley and Amara Miller). When his wife goes into a coma after an accident, a ton of responsibility falls into his lap. When he finds out that his wife was cheating on him, things become tougher.
Clooney channels Jimmy Stewart, proving himself adept at playing an ordinary schmoe with real problems, even as one of the World's Biggest Movie Stars. The movie also has star-making performances from Woodley and from Nick Krause as her friend Sid, whose job it is to keep her company at the most awkward times. Robert Forster, Matthew Lillard and Judy Greer are also very good in crucial roles. Like Payne's previous films Sideways and About Schmidt, The Descendants accompanies complex characters in a story that has no easy solutions.
This is why The Help will likely win the Oscar. In addition to having more of a clear-cut story arc, it's a Hollywood success story: dumped in August, it became one of the highest-grossing and most-talked-about films of 2011. The Academy loves surprise success stories: who knew that The Hurt Locker would come from behind and beat out Avatar?
5. Code Unknown: Incomplete Tales of Several Journeys (2000): Jan. 10
6. Water for Elephants (2011): Jan. 10
7. The Descendants (2011): Jan. 11
8. The Help (2011): Jan. 13
9. Super 8 (2011): Jan. 13
Showing posts with label the help. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the help. Show all posts
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Friday, January 13, 2012
THE HELP (2011)
The Help is not a great film, but it is an important one. To be sure, it's not a hard-hitting or complex picture of racial relations, nor does it seek to be. It chooses to be a Hollywood movie, with clear-cut heroes and villains, comic relief and drama. Though it doesn't cut as deep as we've come to expect a film about racial tension to do, it is nonetheless a jarring reminder of the relative youth of the Civil Rights Movement. It takes place in 1963 Mississippi--less than fifty years ago and in a recognizable America--but considering the racial relations it may as well have been Civil War-era. Black people were still bullied out of the voting booth, sent to separate schools, even forbidden from talking to white people at times. Again: less than fifty years ago.
The Help tells the story of the beginning of the turning of the tide. While segregation still holds and the community of Jackson, Miss., still suffers under Jim Crow, Martin Luther King is marching on Washington and planting the seeds of the Civil Rights Movement. In the meantime, a plucky young college graduate named Skeeter (Emma Stone) returns to Jackson hoping to become a journalist, though she settles for a job as housekeeping advice columnist for the local newspaper.
Not knowing much about housekeeping, she asks her friend's housemaid Aibileen (Viola Davis) for help. Stricken by how Aibileen is treated, Skeeter soon wants to know more about her side of the story: something which most of the white community of Jackson could not care less about. She begins to compile Aibileen's and other black women's stories into a book, "The Help."
Critics of the film have written it off as a white-woman-saves-all-the-black-people story, as though all the black community needed was one nice white person to lead them to victory. This is missing the point. The movie is more about the beginnings of change in America; Skeeter's interest in the "help's" side of the story parallels the nation's gravitation away from casual ignorance and toward equal rights.
Viola Davis owns the film as Aibileen. The movie's biggest discovery--which not many movies have touched on before--is that black housemaids were often more than simple house help, but also mothers to the children of their employers. Davis perfectly captures a woman disenchanted by her mistreatment, but torn by her genuine love for the little girl she's been taking care of. Octavia Spencer is also dynamic as fellow housemaid Minny, and her scenes with her new employer, an outcast socialite named Celia (Jessica Chastain), are quite moving.
The movie's Hollywood conventions do get the better of it at times. Though Stone is very good, the movie poses too much interest in her character; though her relationship with the maid that raised her (Cicely Tyson, who's magnificent) is central to the story, I have to confess I didn't much care about Skeeter's romantic sub-plot. The movie continues to reintroduce a boring love interest (Chris Lowell) when he might just as well have been dismissed.
The movie's arch villain, a snippy little housewife named Hilly (Bryce Dallas Howard) is so dastardly as to be inhuman. Hilly is nasty to her maids, nasty to her friends, and does everything short of twirl a mustache to signify that she is evil. It's to Howard's credit that the character is chilling rather than silly. Sissy Spacek gives a good performance as Hilly's senile mother, though in an otherwise highbrow movie her character seems to have graduated from the Adam Sandler School for Funky Grandmas.
Though it has its shortfalls as a major studio release, The Help is still an honest and affecting film. As a Hollywood film, it's less daring than an independent film might have been, and falls easily into convention. But the movie still has a compelling story to tell, and the performances by Davis, Spencer, Tyson, and Chastain are completely authentic. It was a crime that Davis did not win the Oscar for Doubt, and if she does not win this year, it will be a crime again.
*** 1/2 out of ****
The Help tells the story of the beginning of the turning of the tide. While segregation still holds and the community of Jackson, Miss., still suffers under Jim Crow, Martin Luther King is marching on Washington and planting the seeds of the Civil Rights Movement. In the meantime, a plucky young college graduate named Skeeter (Emma Stone) returns to Jackson hoping to become a journalist, though she settles for a job as housekeeping advice columnist for the local newspaper.
Not knowing much about housekeeping, she asks her friend's housemaid Aibileen (Viola Davis) for help. Stricken by how Aibileen is treated, Skeeter soon wants to know more about her side of the story: something which most of the white community of Jackson could not care less about. She begins to compile Aibileen's and other black women's stories into a book, "The Help."
Critics of the film have written it off as a white-woman-saves-all-the-black-people story, as though all the black community needed was one nice white person to lead them to victory. This is missing the point. The movie is more about the beginnings of change in America; Skeeter's interest in the "help's" side of the story parallels the nation's gravitation away from casual ignorance and toward equal rights.
Viola Davis owns the film as Aibileen. The movie's biggest discovery--which not many movies have touched on before--is that black housemaids were often more than simple house help, but also mothers to the children of their employers. Davis perfectly captures a woman disenchanted by her mistreatment, but torn by her genuine love for the little girl she's been taking care of. Octavia Spencer is also dynamic as fellow housemaid Minny, and her scenes with her new employer, an outcast socialite named Celia (Jessica Chastain), are quite moving.
The movie's Hollywood conventions do get the better of it at times. Though Stone is very good, the movie poses too much interest in her character; though her relationship with the maid that raised her (Cicely Tyson, who's magnificent) is central to the story, I have to confess I didn't much care about Skeeter's romantic sub-plot. The movie continues to reintroduce a boring love interest (Chris Lowell) when he might just as well have been dismissed.
The movie's arch villain, a snippy little housewife named Hilly (Bryce Dallas Howard) is so dastardly as to be inhuman. Hilly is nasty to her maids, nasty to her friends, and does everything short of twirl a mustache to signify that she is evil. It's to Howard's credit that the character is chilling rather than silly. Sissy Spacek gives a good performance as Hilly's senile mother, though in an otherwise highbrow movie her character seems to have graduated from the Adam Sandler School for Funky Grandmas.
Though it has its shortfalls as a major studio release, The Help is still an honest and affecting film. As a Hollywood film, it's less daring than an independent film might have been, and falls easily into convention. But the movie still has a compelling story to tell, and the performances by Davis, Spencer, Tyson, and Chastain are completely authentic. It was a crime that Davis did not win the Oscar for Doubt, and if she does not win this year, it will be a crime again.
*** 1/2 out of ****
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