We watched The Help (movie) last night. It was beautifully cast. Minny had been my biggest worry...as my favorite character, I wanted her to be perfect, and she was even more than I'd envisioned. I knew Skeeter would be hard to cast. In the book, she was 6' tall and skinny as a rail with really hard to deal with hair. They did their best to show that with costumes, short actors working next to her and camera tricks to make her appear taller than most other characters, and, of course, the hair straightening scene. In the book, the only character taller than her was the guy Hilly had arranged the double date with.
To me, all of the young white male characters looked alike. Was that deliberate? I think it is funny. Altogether really great casting. Cicily Tyson was wonderful!
But, as usual, the book was better. The movie was so compressed and left so much out that it came across as being a rather tame feel-good chick flick. The book, on the other hand, was a masterfully written suspense thriller that kept me terrified and on edge worried about my favorite characters to the end and even after...
I enjoyed reading "The Help." That said, after I read the book (I didn't see the movie) I was led to pick up Sinclair Lewis's "Kingsblood Royal." It, too, is a novel about being African-American in the USA in the 1940s, but it is certainly more graphic and detailed about the kinds of things white people said and believed at the time. It was a tough read, knowing that this behavior actually happened in my lifetime. Just today an older lady remarked that Dr. Oz hugs all the people that come on his show, even the black ladies. What?? Why wouldn't he hug the black ladies? What kind of statement was that in this day and enlightened age?? Anyway, if you want a harsher view of race relations in America in the forties, give "Kingsblood Royal" a try.
ReplyDeleteI'll have to add "Kingsblood Royal" to my "wish list." I need to buy books soon to get the second Thomas Covenant series for TR.
ReplyDeleteMy Robin Cook pile of books is being broadened to a "social consciousness" pile and I'll add "Kingsblood Royal" to that pile. :-) (See my first post of February for an explanation of my silly piles...)