The Help

Director: Tate Taylor
Starring: Emma Stone, Viola Davis, Octavia L. Spencer
Time Out rating:

Mississippi's burning, but it's nothing a little race-transcending grrrl power won't cure. Adapted from Kathryn Stockett's best-selling novel, this shamelessly cornball dramedy tells the tale of best friends Aibileen (Viola Davis) and Minny (Octavia L. Spencer), two black Jackson, Mississippi, maids who open up to white budding writer Skeeter (Emma Stone) about their subservient existence. Since the film is set in the jim crow South at the dawn of the civil-rights era, they have plenty to share. And Skeeter – hoping to do her duty for Dr King and country, as well as land a plum New York book contract – plans to publish the stories as a society-shaking tell-all.

The tone lashes excruciatingly between lip-quivering solemnity (Aibileen stumbles upon the Medgar Evers shooting!) and crowd-pleasing sass (an extended set piece sees Minny serving a pie made of shit to a snooty bigot played by an insufferably one-note Bryce Dallas Howard). But it's a testament to the lead actors' talents that they make this uneasy stew of historical window dressing and Hollywood uplift palatable in the moment. Spencer, a superb performer mainly known for small character parts, gives an Oscar-winning turn as the won't-take-no-guff Minny. And Davis is expectedly subtle and moving, especially when her character finally stands up to her employer. But not even the most able thespian could counteract the bitter taste brought on by the Oprah-fied finale, which hilariously soothes the scars of segregation via the soaring stylings of Mary J. Blige.

The Help opens nationwide on March 31