The Help 2011

Amy Biancolli, Houston Chronicle: A splendid entertainment -- a film that makes us for root for the good guys, hiss at the bad and convulse in laughter when good wreaks vengeance with a smile. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: The movie isn't perfect; it sometimes shows its stitching. But mostly it's a stirring salute to subjugated women who hold their heads high. Read more

Glenn Kenny, MSN Movies: Sounds kinda like Mississippi Burning meets Steel Magnolias, doesn't it? Read more

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: Save for Ms. Davis's, the performances are almost all overly broad, sometimes excruciatingly so, characterized by loud laughs, bugging eyes and pumping limbs. Read more

Keith Uhlich, Time Out: Mississippi's burning, but it's nothing a little race-transcending grrrl power won't cure. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: The Help belongs to Viola Davis. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: "The Help" takes us on a pop-cultural tour that savors the picturesque, and strengthens stereotypes it purports to shatter. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: Is the movie version of "The Help" better than the book? Yes, it is, primarily for one reason: The book doesn't have Viola Davis in it. Read more

Scott Tobias, AV Club: Shot like an inductee in the Hallmark Hall Of Fame, The Help covers an ugly era in superficial gloss that's only punctured by the particulars of Mississippi race law or hiring practices that are a mere hairsbreadth away from slavery. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: "The Help" is filled with good acting and better intentions. Read more

David Germain, Associated Press: Stone, Davis and Spencer forge something quite beautiful, a sense of sisterhood and equality that unfolds with ease and grace, never feeling forced or untrue to their era and circumstances. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: "The Help'' comes out on the losing end of the movies' social history. The best film roles three black women will have all year require one of them to clean Ron Howard's daughter's house. It's self-reinforcing movie imagery. Read more

Ben Sachs, Chicago Reader: As in many reductive period pieces, there are no real characters here, just archetypes, namely reactionary cretins and sensitive souls who anticipate modern attitudes. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: "The Help" has Viola Davis going for it, and she is more than enough. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Despite its subject matter, it's a carefully manicured, almost genteel piece of moviemaking. The film is paradoxically both rousing and lulling. Read more

Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News: There's something lived-in and genuine about this infectious melodrama. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: Thanks to a talented cast -- starting with leads Emma Stone, Viola Davis​ and Octavia Spencer​ -- the movie is often entertaining. But The Help should have been challenging too. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: Appalling, entertaining, touching and perhaps even a bit healing, The Help is an old-fashioned grand yarn of a film, the sort we rarely get these days. Read more

William Goss, Film.com: While it may not always be subtle, it pulls off a rare feat of sincerity. Read more

Kirk Honeycutt, Hollywood Reporter: There are small moments in the film though that make you long for a movie that is not so deep-dish serious and self-conscious. Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: Laughter, which is ladled on thick as gravy, proves to be the secret ingredient -- turning what should be a feel-bad movie about those troubled times into a heart-warming surprise. Read more

Karen D'Souza, San Jose Mercury News: This is one shameless tear-jerker that earns its sniffles. Read more

Connie Ogle, Miami Herald: The Help will make you laugh, yes, but it can also break your heart. In the dog days of August moviegoing, that's a powerful recommendation. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: The Help brings a chick-flick sensibility to a serious subject, which is more daring than it might sound. It's also incredibly refreshing. Read more

David Denby, New Yorker: [The Help] is, in some ways, crude and obvious, but it opens up a broad new swath of experience on the screen, and parts of it are so moving and well acted that any objections to what's second-rate seem to matter less as the movie goes on. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: It's ... the black actresses who own this - as they should - and help lift it above well-intentioned melodrama. Read more

Ella Taylor, NPR: While my neighbor had used up her hankie supply by the end of the movie, I left dry-eyed and disappointed. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: While the book's minor -- but crucial -- details are often overlooked, the major themes are thrust on screen with forceful simplicity, as if Taylor doesn't trust us to understand the stakes. Read more

Sara Stewart, New York Post: Aims for "To Kill a Mockingbird" significance, but lands in "Steel Magnolias" territory. Read more

Meghan Keane, New York Observer: The uneven racial terrain of the film likely won't stand in the way of multiple nominations for some truly outstanding performances throughout the movie. Read more

Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer: Like its characters, it has its faults. But overall, it is a movie of imaginative sympathy that gets into the skin of its characters, into their hearts, and, ultimately, into ours. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: I was drawn into the characters and quite moved, even though all the while I was aware it was a feel-good fable, a story that deals with pain but doesn't care to be that painful. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: The Help is an exhilarating gift, a deeply touching human story filled with humor and heartbreak, and sublime performances from Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, Emma Stone and Co. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: "The Help" definitely worked on me as a consummate tear-jerker with a terrific cast, and it's pretty much the summer's only decent Hollywood drama. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: The Help is a high-functioning tearjerker, but the catharsis it offers feels glib and insufficient, a Barbie Band-Aid on the still-raw wound of race relations in America. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: "The Help" avoids the trap of recasting a story of black struggle into the story of a white savior. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: When an important message is delivered through cardboard cutouts, it's akin to a Tyler Perry production of "Guess Who's Cooking the Dinner." Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: Now comes the inevitable movie, which, in the hands of writer/director Tate Taylor, does a novel about injustice an injustice itself: It turns lite into featherweight. Read more

Mary F. Pols, TIME Magazine: For every obvious turn The Help takes, there is Davis, the ideal counterweight. Read more

Cath Clarke, Time Out: Yes, it gets a bit sentimental. Yes, some 'Ya-Ya Sisterhood' friendship cliches creep in. Yes, it glosses history. But it's also heartfelt, hilarious and the cast is a dream-team topped by Viola Davis. Read more

Linda Barnard, Toronto Star: Occasionally the sentimental sweep of the picture threatens to overwhelm, but Taylor manages to pull it back in time. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Fans of the best-selling novel can rest easy: The warmly engaging book has been made into an equally affecting movie. Read more

Peter Debruge, Variety: It serves as an enlightening and deeply affecting exercise in empathy for those who've never considered what life must have been like for African-Americans living with inequality a full century after the Emancipation Proclamation called an end to slavery. Read more

Karina Longworth, Village Voice: We get a fairly typical Hollywood flattening of history, with powerful villains and disenfranchised heroes. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: Both taste and perspective will inform whether viewers will find The Help a revelatory celebration of interracial healing and transcendence, or a patronizing portrait that trivializes those alliances by reducing them to melodrama and facile uplift. Read more