My #OscarsMarathon are up and running! Yesterday was for The Help, adapted (from the homonymous best-seller by Kathryn Stockett!) and directed by Tate Taylor. I was full of expectations, since my mom and my brother loved it and said only good things about it. Maybe that’s why I wasn’t very surprised.
It’s a movie made by its women. Great actresses. No surprise it got three Oscar nominations (besides the one for best picture): best actress in a leading role, to Viola Davis and best actress in a supporting role, to Octavia Spencer and Jessica Chastain. I don’t think it will win the award for best picture. For best actress, though… I think Viola is a pretty strong candidate.
The story takes place in Mississipi, in the 60s. Civil rights movement, racial inequality, prejudice, injustice. Emma Stone’s character decides to write a book through the point of view of the domestic workers. The black women. What a life they lived… God… And that’s how the movie unfolds. Telling the absurdities they went through in the hands of their white employers.
I thought (I’d read the synopsis beforehand) I’d be feeling pretty down by the end of the movie. But I didn’t… It has a pleasant rhythm (funny, at some points), so even if it deals with a pretty sad subject, you’ll cry, o.k., but it won’t get you devastated to the final credits. There are many worse ones!
I have to applaud the fantastic Viola and Octavia (alright, I know that’s a no-brainer!) and Jessica Chastain, for her Celia. Jessica was the movie’s great surprise, in my opinion. I had no expectations about her, so I guess that was why! How incredibly she conducts a character who had all it took to be a caricature. To me, Jessica was the icing on the cake! And a cake generously filled with amazing actresses… Now let’s wait for the Oscars and see if any of them will take it… Place your bets!
