The Help
The film adaptation of Kathryn Stockett’s novel about a white writer who interviews black maids about their experiences working in white homes in the Deep South in the early 1960s is "enormously enjoyable.”
Directed by Tate Taylor
(PG-13)
***
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
It’s hard to imagine a better adaptation of Kathryn Stockett’s popular novel, said David Germain in the Associated Press. “Provocative without turning preachy, tender without tumbling into sentimentality, The Help is above all enormously enjoyable.” Like the 2009 best seller, the film centers on a white writer in the early-1960s Deep South who faces friction from her socialite friends when she begins interviewing black maids for a book about their experiences working in white homes. The film finds almost nothing new to say about the Jim Crow era, said Kirk Honeycutt in The Hollywood Reporter. Though it adroitly captures the anxieties of the period, it “verges uncomfortably into cliché” with its pat depictions of monstrous society women and their noble servants. Yet director Tate Taylor “brings out the best” in his trio of female stars, said David Denby in The New Yorker. As the featured maids, Viola Davis is a moral force and Octavia Spencer has “wicked timing.” Thanks also to protagonist Emma Stone, there are scenes here “so moving and well acted” that “any objection to what’s second-rate seems to matter less as the movie goes on.”
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Scientists want to fight malaria by poisoning mosquitoes with human blood
Under the radar Drugging the bugs
By Devika Rao, The Week US Published
-
Crossword: March 31, 2025
The Week's daily crossword
By The Week Staff Published
-
Sudoku medium: March 31, 2025
The Week's daily medium sudoku puzzle
By The Week Staff Published