Movie Night 8/19/2011

The Help August 19^th, 2011

This movie is filled with AMAZING performances. There will be some serious Oscar buzz surrounded at least two of the actors in this film.

I have heard mixed reviews of Emma Stone's character Skeeter. With the material I thought she did a good job showing what it must have been like for a privileged girl in the early 1960's to begin to see what had been going on around her all her life. And since she seems to have her head screwed on straight, unlike a person with the initials LL, I think we will be seeing a lot more from her in the future.

Viola Davis gives one of the most heartfelt performances I think I've ever seen. The full range of human emotion shows through her acting throughout the movie. She will garner Oscar buzz and deserves a nomination and a statue of her own.

Octavia Spencer gives another amazing performance. She can convey many things with her eyebrows alone. This is one of the other performances that should garner some buzz.

Bryce Dallas Howard got the part of the petty shrew and gives this character so many different facets that I was blown away. After things like the Village I didn't know she had this kind of range in her.

Sissy Spacek plays the addled, doddering mother of Bryce's character and has some of the best lines in the whole film, along with being some comedic relief.

Jessica Chastain brings her own southern Marilyn Monroe and does it with a lot of heart. I've never seen her in anything before but remember her name. She'll be back.

The writing is superb. The pacing is wonderfully done, if you listen to the audience the distinctive sound of laughter through tears can be heard as a light moment often follows a dark moment.

I would not be surprised to see The Help along with Sarah's Key nominated a whole bunch of times.

This is a movie that makes you wonder how you would have reacted if you had lived in that time and that place. I found myself wondering what it must have been like to have had no rights and then I realized that although I may have a lot of rights I don't have all of them that the majority of Americans have. It is my hope that someday we will all have the same legal rights and protections and that out society will advance to a place where it matters not what color your skin is, what God you believe in and whom you love.