Film Adaptation of The Help

In the mind of the reader, nothing is worse than a film adaption of their favorite book that is just terrible! Prime example for me: the 1960s version of Romeo and Juliet. Not pretty, but I digress. For anyone in the film industry, they know that this can be one of the greatest challenges they will ever face. They think this way for the exact same reason as a reader: If there are serious inconsistencies between the book and the movie, not as many people are going to see the movie and the movie probably won't get a very good response from their audience. It's not always a bad idea to turn a book into a movie. There are countless examples of fantastic film adaptations such as the Harry Potter series, the Hunger Games, The King's Speech, The Blind Side and The Help.


Today, I'll be focusing on the film adaptation of The Help by Kathryn Stockett.The movie stars Emma Stone as Skeeter, Viola Davis as Ailbileen, and Octavia Spencer as Minny. I think that the biggest challenge for the film maker was finding people who could imitate a traditional southren accent but not have the accent so strong that people couldn't understand what the actors are saying. The film maker made an excellent choice by selecting these three women as the main characters because you could easily imagine them really living in the south and being able to sass anyone in the world.


There are three specific scenes that I think needed to be included in the movie and I'm very happy to say they were. Those three scenes were:


1. Skeeter decides to write a book from the point of view of Jackson's housemaids. This sets up the main conflict in the book and it is when the story really begins. The whole point of The Help is to record the journey to accomplish this book. Although it is ironic to read a book called The Help where the story is about writing a book about black housemaids called Help, Kathryn Stockett's book is very easy to follow and this easiness translated into the film as well.


2. The second scene is when Minny confesses about the "Terrible Awful I done to Miss Hilly." The terrible awful is that after Minny is fired, she returns with a pie she made just for Miss Hilly. Miss Hilly has drafted something called The Home Health Safety Intiative which requires all white homes to have a separate bathroom for the colored help. Minny finds this insulting so when Miss Hilly is eating the pie, Minny tells her to "eat my s***." Miss Hilly is in shock and doesn't understand what's happened until she looks down at Minny's pie. I think we can all guess what happened from there... a long sprint to the bathroom! I enjoyed this part because it brought some comic relief into the novel and it helped develop Minny's character as the maid with an attitude. I would also highly recommend watching the video clip on YouTube. It will have you laughing so hard, tears will be coming out of your eyes.


3. The final scene is when people start to buy and read Skeeter's book. It justifies everything that Skeeter and the maids were working so hard for and it is one of the few truly happy, care-free moments in the book. It is a feel-good moment because Skeeter was told that the book will probably not sell and to see Skeeter's work finally come to life is very cool to see and read.


There is another side to making a movie. Film makers will often have to cut parts from books or otherwise the movie will last for 3 or 4 hours. The basic point of a movie is so someone can see an entire story in roughly two hours. There are two things that I am happy that were cut out the movie because I felt that they were unecessary to the basic story line and to the book.

1. The first part was Celia Foote's story. I don't know why they needed to go into how Celia can't have a baby and all of her family drama. I think they could have just left it at she is Minny's employer, she is kind of kooky and that she is on the outside of society.

2. The second part is the conflict between Skeeter and her mother. While I still think that the story about Constantine is important, all of the conflict about being a proper lady and looking like everybody else wasn't needed. Skeeter tells us in the beginning of the book that she's not like anyone else. Why not just leave it at that?

Overall, the film adaptation stayed true to the book and conveyed the story very well. It was a very well done film adaptation. In fact, you could say that the movie was down right magical.