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The Help
Aibileen Clark is a middle-aged African-American maid who has spent her life raising white children and has recently lost her only son; Minny Jackson is an African-American maid who has often offended her employers despite her family's struggles with money and her desperate need for jobs; and Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan is a young white woman who has recently moved back home after graduating college to find out her childhood maid has mysteriously disappeared. These three stories intertwine to explain how life in Jackson, Mississippi revolves around "the help"; yet they are always kept at a certain distance because of racial lines.
2011 · Directed by Tate Taylor · 146 min · Drama · Screenplay in the scene database · 57 frames
Tagline
Change begins with a whisper.
Plot
In 1963, Aibileen Clark is an African-American domestic worker in Jackson, Mississippi, working for socialite Elizabeth Leefolt. She raises Elizabeth's daughter, two-year-old Mae Mobley, who is emotionally neglected due to postpartum depression Elizabeth suffered following Mae's birth. Aibileen's best friend, Minny Jackson, works for an elderly Mrs. Walters and her manipulative daughter Hillary "Hilly" Holbrook, who leads the Jackson chapter of the Junior League.
Elizabeth and Hilly's friend Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan is an unmarried aspiring writer and recent graduate of Ole Miss, who has been rejected by Elaine Stein, an editor at Harper and Row in New York City. Securing a local job writing a housekeeping column, she witnesses the city's systemic racism and the demeaning mistreatment of maids.
Hilly insists on installing separate bathrooms for the maids to use. Skeeter's mother Charlotte tells her that the family maid Constantine quit, but Skeeter does not believe her. She decides to write a book of interviews with the maids to expose their experiences. Minny is fired by Hilly for using an indoor bathroom during a tornado. Hilly vindictively renders Minny unemployable by spreading the lie that she stole from her, forcing her teenaged daughter to quit school to work.
Plot summary from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA.
Crew
- Screenplay: Tate Taylor
- Cinematography: Stephen Goldblatt
- Edited by: Hughes Winborne
- Music: Thomas Newman
- Production design: Mark Ricker
- Produced by: Chris Columbus, Brunson Green, Michael Barnathan
Cast
- Emma Stone as Skeeter Phelan
- Viola Davis as Aibileen Clark
- Bryce Dallas Howard as Hilly Holbrook
- Octavia Spencer as Minny Jackson
- Jessica Chastain as Celia Foote
- Ahna O'Reilly as Elizabeth Leefolt
- Allison Janney as Charlotte Phelan
- Anna Camp as Jolene French
- Eleanor Henry as Mae Mobley
- Emma Henry as Mae Mobley
Production
- Country: United States of America
- Language: English
- Studios: 1492 Pictures, Harbinger Pictures
- Budget: $25,000,000
- Box office: $216,600,000
- Themes: based on novel or book, mississippi river, exploitation, racial segregation, racism, writer, maid, moral courage, ressentiment, southern belle
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