The Help: a safe film about a controversial topic.

It tells the tale of our haunting past, one full of hatred and revulsion. It is able to tell an ugly story in a beautifully moving way.

The story focuses on Skeeter Phelan, a recent college graduate who is looking to find her voice in the world of journalism. She is the one who decides to tell the unheard stories of the African-American women she has known all her life. And while the story begins by concentrating on the rebellious journalist, the movie is stolen, one scene at a time, by two other characters: Minny Jackson and Aibileen Clark. Both are maids who seem to be all too familiar with the inside of white porcelain toilets and being dehumanized by their white bosses simply because of the shade of their skin.

Minny takes the job of the behind-the-scenes wife for a young blonde who has married a wealthy businessman and has bitten off much more than she can chew. Aibileen takes on the role of a mother, literally raising little girls whose mothers refuse to even touch them most of the time. She showers them with affection and teaches them how to love even though she is fully aware of the inescapable truth: their pure souls will soon be tainted with the ugliness of society. They undeniably have an inescapable tendency to turn into their mothers.

Skeeter, the risky writer, asks the questions that everyone else is afraid to ask. She is the one who sheds light onto the stories of the maids who have been taught that they are worth nothing more than their ability to scrub toilets and do laundry. Skeeter handles these story threads gracefully as she bounces from one household to another, from the bright plantation where she resides to the shotgun shacks that Aibileen and Minny call home.

The Help is a movie that focuses on much more than the concept of racism and segregation; it deals with the issue of being human and how to maintain a soft , gentle heart in the face of a cold world. It is a movie that adroitly addresses the hard-hitting issues of society in a seamlessly delicate manner. Just when you think the movie may be getting too heavy, Minny begins vacuuming a teddy bear just for a few smiles and giggles. In other words, the movie deals with pain, but not in a painful way.

The Help is a movie that makes you question what it is to be human. It makes you want to be a little more compassionate and feel a little more intensely. The movie isn’t intended to be centered around the repulsion of the era, but rather a hopeful story concerning the beauty that can spring from that kind of ugliness, about the capability of people to love each other even when they’re continuously engulfed in a world encompassed with hatred. The Help is a film which possesses a rare transcending quality. It is able to transport you to another word, one dusted with animosity and contempt, and make you appreciative of the fact that we are now able to reside in a world that relies on more than simply the shade of your skin.