The Help (2011) on Netflix
In 1963 Jackson, Mississippi, Aibileen Clark and Minny Jackson clean houses for white families. Skeeter Phelan, a college graduate who wants to write, asks the maids to tell her their stories.
- Netflix4.3/5
- IMDb8.1/10533,156 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes76%
Trailer
Plot summary
Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan comes home to Jackson, Mississippi, in 1963 after graduating from the University of Mississippi, unmarried and set on becoming a writer. She takes a job writing the local paper's Miss Myrna housekeeping column, though she knows little about housework, and asks Aibileen Clark for help. Aibileen cooks, cleans and raises Elizabeth Leefolt's small daughter, Mae Mobley, and her friend Minny Jackson works for Hilly Holbrook, who leads the Junior League and wants separate bathrooms for the maids. Skeeter dislikes how her friends treat the black women who work in their homes, and she proposes a book of their interviews. Elaine Stein, an editor in New York, is not encouraging.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Help (2011)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The Association of Black Women Historians criticized the film in an open statement: its national director, Ida E. Jones, said The Help distorts, ignores and trivializes the experiences of black domestic workers, and that the association found it unacceptable for either the book or the film to strip black women’s lives of historical accuracy for the sake of entertainment.
- Octavia Spencer, who portrays Minny, was herself the inspiration for the character of Minny in Stockett's novel, and had already voiced her in the audiobook version.
- The Help topped the box office for 25 days in a row, the longest uninterrupted streak since The Sixth Sense, which managed 35 days and was also a late summer release, back in 1999.
- To convince producers to shoot in Greenwood, Tate Taylor and others scouted locations in the town beforehand, and at his first meeting with DreamWorks executives he presented them with a photo album of potential filming spots in the area.
- Mary J. Blige composed “The Living Proof”, the film’s only original track, after a second viewing of the film; she told Fandom Entertainment in 2011 that she had been moved in so many ways, and her raw emotions inspired the song.
