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movie review - The Help

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

This is a story about some corner of the US south where a young lady grows up in a white household with black servants. Growing up in the environment, she learns how everything works and comes to see the pervasive injustice and the terrible walls built between people as something she has to fight. So she creates a book that semi-anonymously relates real stories from that town disguised as fictional stories. It's a bit of a punch to the stomach, really, especially the notion that no matter what influence black nannies might have on their white charges, the young white women only "turn into their mothers". Of course, the book has ramifications.

I enjoyed the stories, the characters, and even the setting. Everyone in this thing shows up to put in a damn good performance and the whole thing really works.

Strongly recommended.