This is pure white saviour from the bottom up. The author of the book, the writer/director of the film that it led to, and the intended audience. It's this notion that the only way for black people to get civil rights is for us whites to take a leadership role, rather than the truth, which is just that we need to get out of their way and otherwise support them in any way we can.
It feels like Mean Girls. Which by itself would be fine. I have no issue with that. I know it means the world to a lot of young women and I can imagine I would love it if I at some point do get around to watching it as is the case with many other quote unquote chick flicks. The problem is that it tries to both do that and also tackle Jim Crow. And these two just really do not go together. It feels like a lot of shower arguments. Kathryn Stockett being angry at the housewives. It's entirely possible one of them is based very heavily on her mother. So she invents Skeeter as a sort of self-insert imagining that she would have been "one of the good ones". Is it stolen valour if they're fictional?
If you can look past that, though I don't think you should (my rating is based purely on the following, not any of the aforementioned issues), certainly this is incredibly well-made. Every aspect of production is immaculate. The cast is fantastic. I saw someone else compare it to a Christopher Guest movie in that respect, and I'd have to agree. Bryce Dallas Howard is given a quite thankless one note character but like everybody else absolutely hits it out the park. 8/10.
It feels like Mean Girls. Which by itself would be fine. I have no issue with that. I know it means the world to a lot of young women and I can imagine I would love it if I at some point do get around to watching it as is the case with many other quote unquote chick flicks. The problem is that it tries to both do that and also tackle Jim Crow. And these two just really do not go together. It feels like a lot of shower arguments. Kathryn Stockett being angry at the housewives. It's entirely possible one of them is based very heavily on her mother. So she invents Skeeter as a sort of self-insert imagining that she would have been "one of the good ones". Is it stolen valour if they're fictional?
If you can look past that, though I don't think you should (my rating is based purely on the following, not any of the aforementioned issues), certainly this is incredibly well-made. Every aspect of production is immaculate. The cast is fantastic. I saw someone else compare it to a Christopher Guest movie in that respect, and I'd have to agree. Bryce Dallas Howard is given a quite thankless one note character but like everybody else absolutely hits it out the park. 8/10.