D.fter Best enemies And The right to count, Rai 1 broadcasts another wide-ranging title by sending: The Helpat 21.25.
Based on the novel by Kathryn Stocketttells the segregation of American society from the point of view of black maids, employed in white houses. Released in 2011, the film was granted an Oscar as a supporting character to Octavia Spencer – masterful in role of Minny. In the following years, four other actresses in the cast they won a statuettemaking the film one sort of laboratory of talent. Which some of them, however, have denied.
The plot of The Help
Jackson, Mississippi, sixties. In 1963 Eugenia Phelan (Emma Stone) called Skeeter, he returns to his hometown after completing his degree. Hugging her parents, wealthy landowners, and her friends back, however to a lifetime – with the values of well-being, marriage and etiquette at the center – that it is no longer his.
Indeed she wants to be fulfilled on a professional level. And therefore he starts working for a local newspaper, while in parallel he carries on a project with a publishing house in New York. It takes little for Skeeter to finally realize the backwardness of the Mississippi, crossed by segregation and racism. The city of Jackson is the mirror of clear division between whites and blacks. White families hire black maids, which they suffer constant discrimination and humiliation.
Viola Davis. (Handle)
Aibileen Clark (Viola Davis)the protagonist, has always served in white families, taking care of the children. She who had a son, but lost it in an accident at work. In 1963 you are employed at Elizabeth (Anna O’Reilly) and looks after her daughter. Alongside the story of Aibeleen, there is that of Minny Jackson (Octavia Spencer)a maid with a strong character, with a private life that is anything but simple: she is a mother of five children and is married to a violent man.
Octavia Spencer at the 2012 Oscars. (Getty Images)
Jessica Chastain is also in the cast
Struck by the harassment they are forced to endure, Skeeter wants to tell Jackson’s middle class from the maids’ point of view. He gets the support of Aibileen, which involves Minny, just fired from Hilly Holbrook (Bryce Dallas Howard) after using one of the bathrooms in your home. An episode that still pays more evident the racism which was imbued with the society of the time.
Soon after, Minny is hired by Celia Foote (Jessica Chastain), a woman different from the others. She does not share racist attitudes on the part of whites and, at the same time, leads a life of her own, far from the urban elite. The reason is simple: she married Holbrook’s ex-boyfriend, an unforgivable rudeness that earned her ostracism. Celia, however, does not care about the attacks and goes straight on her own path.
Meanwhile in the city the acts of intimidation against the African American community continue, and the maids refuse to collaborate on the Skeeter manuscript, as they are terrified of the repercussions. At least until Jackson gets there Yule Mae (Aunjanue Ellis), Hilly’s new maid. Yule is arrested after stealing and selling a Holbrook ring to pay for college for her children. At the same time, the murder of the activist Medgar Evers causes the African American community to say enough to the abusesin the name of freedom and respect.
On the final of The Helpthe protagonists decide to collaborate with Skeeter, causing the manuscript not only to be published, but also to become an editorial success.
Jessica Chastain and Octavia Spencer. (Ipa)
Viola Davis and Bryce Dallas Howard and distances from The Help
The film garnered a number of accolades. Despite the success, he was the recipient of harsh criticism not so much from the public as from the cast. Yes, two of the actresses broke away from the film and expressed their disappointment. A singular stance, but amply motivated by each of them.
The first was Viola Davis. That in 2018 in an interview with New York Times claimed to have regret playing Aibeleen Clark. According to the actress, the film tells the world of blacks from the point of view of whites. “At the end of the shoot, I felt that those weren’t the maids’ voices. I know Aibeleen, I know Minny. I am my grandmother, my mother. The premise was to make a film to understand what it meant to work for whites in 1963but I have not seen any of this ».
Of the same opinion too Bryce Dallas Howard, who in the film is the snobbish and obnoxious Hilly Holbrook. “The Help is a fictional story told through the point of view of a white character and developed predominantly by whites. We can move on, ”she said.
Viola Davis. (Getty Images)
Criticism aside, an important film for the entire cast
Despite criticism from Davis and Howard, The Help marked a watershed for the career of the protagonists. Davis, thanks to the film, obtained a prominent place in the Hollywood Olympus, crowned by an Oscar for Barriers in 2016. Emma Stone he won it the following year for La La Land.
By Octavia Spencer we have already said. The last two actresses in the cast of The Help who won an Oscar were Allison Janney for Tonya and Jessica Chastain a month ago for Tammy Faye’s eyes.
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