This isn’t a review (or even a mini-review) of The Help (Touchstone, 8.10), which I saw tonight. That’s for down the road. But I could sense from reactions at the screening that it’ll be a hit with over-25 educated femmes, and perhaps beyond that demo. A youngish woman sitting near me was teary-eyed when the lights came up.
Emma Stone is the bright and diligent writer who interviews African-American maids working in Jackson, Mississippi, for a book exposing small-town racism. Bryce Dallas Howard plays a racist wicked-witch wife. But the stars of the film are Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer as two of the maids who secretly help Stone. They both give knockout performances, and are now at or near the top of the 2011 Best Supporting Actress list.
