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HOLY COW C O F F E E & T E A
130 South Main St. Sebastopol, CA 707.861.9050
STONE COLD This summer’s hit chick-ick adapts the bestselling novel.
Maid in Jackson
‘The Help’ a serviceable look at Mississippi maids in the ’60s BY RICHARD VON BUSACK
T
he Help’s story is, on the surface, patronizing. Just out of Ole Miss in 1962 is struggling writer Skeeter (Emma Stone), who seeks oral histories from the black maids who keep white households running in Jackson, Miss. Times are politically volatile; we know this because the ďŹ lmmakers put Bob Dylan on the soundtrack and Medgar Evers on TV. Still, Skeeter presses her friend’s servant, Aibileen, to talk. As that maid who ďŹ rst tells her story, Viola Davis helps set off scandal when Skeeter’s research is released.
As Minny, cuddly yet furious Octavia Spencer revamps another archetype of the bulky, shrewd black maid, reminding viewers how much audiences used to enjoy that kind of comedy in 1940s ďŹ lm. As the employer of Minny, Jessica Chastain also shines as a curvy, good-hearted white-trash refugee from Sugar Ditch. (That tragic reallife town’s name reinforces the story’s metaphor of raw sewage as a symbol for stinking, half-buried racism.) Sissy Spacek has a small but key role as the slightly senile mother of the hateful club woman Hilly, and playing this snobby villainess given just desserts, Bryce Dallas Howard gives her ďŹ rst really forceful performance. The bestselling novel’s notorious “terrible and awfulâ€? incident, a sureďŹ re bit ever since Titus Andronicus, is essential to the ďŹ lm’s hit-making status. Spacek’s reaction shots give even the straightlaced permission to laugh. Decked out in rebellious curls, the liquid-eyed Stone builds what’s going to be deserved stardom with a variation on her character in the spirited Easy A. ConďŹ dent actor-turned-director Tate Taylor handles this cast in “What would George Cukor do?â€?–style. The art direction, photography and musical selections (except for the Dylan needledrop) are all ďŹ rst-rate, even if the accents are shaky. Of the white cast, only Spacek really has it right. To hear her pronounce the word “Biloxiâ€? is enough to make one actually nostalgic for the South. ‘The Help’ opens in wide release this week.