The Help by Kathryn Stockett has been on my “to-read” list since I purchased it last year. Similarly I have been dying to watch the film but I wouldn’t do this until I had read the book and with my compulsory college reading (and a million other books on my list), I simply haven’t got around to it. Until now!
I did my final exam last week so now I am free to enjoy my summer! A few summer projects I have going on at the moment are learning French, attempting to write a novel, and of course, maintaining my blog for you guys! But alongside all of these projects I have been trying to keep up with my 50 books challenge (www.goodreads.com) and my most recent book in this challenge was The Help. This book took me about five days to read and as soon as I finished I lent the DVD of the film adaptation from a friend so that I could do a review and comparison whilst the book was still fresh in my memory. Now the way I’m going to do this is the way I find easiest for myself and also the way I think you guys will find easiest which is to review the book first on it’s own and then do the movie review and comparison after. (If you don’t like this way then leave a comment and I will bear this in mind the next time I do a comparison post). So, without further ado, here is my The Help book/movie review and comparison…
Book: The Help, written by Kathryn Stockett
Published in 2009
Before I make any in-depth analysis or intelligent comments about this book can I first say, wow.
Wow, wow, wow.
This book was incredible. It’s fairly long (about 470 pages) however I felt that the pace didn’t drag and as there was so much information crammed into this novel I think Stockett did a great job of taking her time and keeping the speed of the book appropriate to the story line and plot. It was the length/speed of this book that made me fear the movie because Stockett pays such attention to detail and I knew that in a film this would be almost impossible to match. The story is told from the perspective of three different women, Aibileen, Minny and Skeeter and is set in Jackson, Mississippi in the early 1960’s. Aibileen and Minny are both black house-maids to white families and Skeeter is a white woman attempting to become a writer who is also friends with the women Aibileen and Minny work for. The book’s main theme is racial culture and the issue of racism and segregation in parts of America at the time. The book’s chapters alternate between the three women throughout the story and I was always sad to come to the end of one of the women’s chapters however equally thrilled to be re-joining another character at the same time.
My favourite character was, without a doubt, Skeeter who I completely related to on every level, from the love of writing and hate of discrimination to the friction between her and her mother and their love/hate relationship. I got so caught up in the story and the racism that whenever I read one of Skeeter’s chapters it was like a breath of fresh air and my brain could relax for a while.
I loved Aibileen and Minny but in completely contrasting ways. I think I warmed to Aibileen a lot more throughout the book so by the end I felt more emotionally attached to her character whereas Minny I just found hilarious from the start but throughout the story she began to, excuse my language, piss me off a bit at times. Not because she is a dislikeable character but the way she has been treated by white people has clearly left her with trust issues which put strain on her relationship with her boss, Celia Foote, and at times I wanted to scream into the book, “just let her be nice to you!”.
Speaking of Celia, she was probably my other favourite character aside from Skeeter. She is such a naive yet adorable woman who clearly just wants to do right by everybody, Minny, her husband, the other ladies in town. I bonded with Celia’s character almost instantly and I felt sort of protective over her. Minny calls her a “fool” and I completely agree, she is so caught up in her own world that she cannot see how society functions and what her “place” is in it which results in her feeling lonely and not good enough. I felt so sorry for her but at the same time thought she was a really open and charming character with a lot of guts.
My one complaint is that I figured out what the “Terrible Awful” was about halfway through the book and it seemed slightly predictable to me. This doesn’t mean that I didn’t find it hilarious or genius, because I did, I just thought that it was strung out a little too long which meant I figured it out sooner than I should have. If you experienced this too please let me know in the comments as I would like to know if it was a general thing or just me!
Overall I found this book to be well-written, though-provoking and insightful and I am pleased to say I give The Help by Kathryn Stockett a 5/5! Will hopefully re-read this in the future!
Movie: The Help, directed by Tate Taylor
Released in 2011
I mentioned in the book review that I was concerned that this film would not contain all of the information that was in the book and to be frank, it doesn’t. How could it when the book has over 450 pages and all that had to be crammed into a 140 minute movie? That being said, the film was a really faithful adaptation and it got in a lot more of the detail than I thought it would so, well done Tate Taylor! I enjoyed this film so much I didn’t want it to end, (I already have plans to watch it again with my mother tomorrow!), and I actually cried in two separate scenes whereas I didn’t cry reading the book at all!
Firstly though, the casting. I think casting is so important when filming a movie based on a novel because when you read you build up an image of the character in your head and, of course it is impossible to completely match that so you need to make the film character EVEN BETTER.
Now, this is probably completely biased as I have a massive girl crush on Emma Stone but, oh, my, God. Her performance as Skeeter was so amazing, seriously close to how I pictured her when reading and just generally so talented, beautiful, funny… (Did I over fangirl there?). But in all seriousness, I thought she played the part amazingly and the scenes between her and Allison Janney who played her mother were truly funny and actually led to me liking the character of Charlotte Phelan because I really didn’t in the book. Another character who gave me a nice surprise was Constantine, played by Cicely Tyson, who I didn’t really connect with in the book but in the film made me cry like a baby.
A character who disappointed me was Celia, played by Jessica Chastain, who as I have mentioned, was one of my favourite characters in the book. Jessica’s acting was great, I just felt like I was watching a completely different character to the one I had read in the novel. I felt that whilst Celia in the book came across as vulnerable and ditzy, Celia in the film was more brash and overbearing. It doesn’t help that a large section of her story from the book was left out, which is what made me warm to her when I read it.
Another character who wasn’t like I read her in the book was Hilly Holbrook, acted by Bryce Dallas Howard. In the book I read Hilly as quite a sophisticated yet bitchy woman however in the movie she played up the the “teen drama” element and had a touch of “Regina George” about her which I actually think worked really well and I was pleasantly surprised by this.
The costumes and the set was all excellent, I especially loved the women’s beautiful 1960’s dresses which came in stunning colours and looked beautiful on screen. The hairdo’s (a big part of 60’s fashion culture) were all gorgeous and it all looked fantastic.
Overall I really did love this movie. I thought it was true to the story and was performed brilliantly by all the actors and actresses involved. To be honest, if I had watched this film without reading the book I would have easily given it 5/5 however as this is a comparison I am going to give it a very close 4.5/5 and I recommend this film to anybody who has read the book!
Have you read or watched The Help and if so what are your thoughts? Please feel free to leave them in the comments and we’ll have a discussion!
Toodles!
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