The Help - a book and movie review

I don't usually jump on the bandwagon when a popular book or movie is released. In this case, I'm feeling rather smug that I read the book before it became a mainstay at the local book clubs.  But I really owe this to my friend SJ who kept after me to read the book. 

The Help - novel
There's so much to like about this book it's hard to pin it down for a blog posting. So here are my highlights:

• This is author Kathyrn Stockett's first novel. Imagine that! Isn't that all aspiring writers' dream? 
• The dialogue is compelling and deep. The book is told from the points of view of three women: Aibileen, Minnie and Miss Skeeter.  They each have their own voice - in the story and in the novel. Their perspectives are honest. The dialect used for Aibileen and Minnie is believable. 
• The characters where three dimensional. They had good and bad qualities. They were real people.
• The themes told against the backdrop of the budding civil rights movement are, nevertheless, timeliness and relevant today. Friendship. Forgiveness. Forebearance. Freedom. Family.

I was sad when the book ended. I missed all the characters and was left wanting to know more.  This, to me, is the hallmark of a well-written novel.

The Help - movie
It is always dicey to take a popular novel and turn it into a movie.  Readers conjure the characters to their own specifications and interpretations. I've been left wondering, at times, if the director and producer even read the book. (Case in point, the casting of Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher, the protagonist in Lee Child's series about a retired Army major turned heroic vigalante.) In The Help, however, the casting director did a very good job.  Miss Skeeter was a little shorter than expected and her hair was a bit more fashionable than the book led us to believe.  Aibileen and Minnie met my expectations, as did the supporting cast of characters.

But alas, while the movie is very good, I confess I was disappointed by how they handled the firing of Constantine. The act that led up to the firing seemed so unconsquential (even in the 1960s) that it seems hard to believe that it would have resulted in the firing of a 29-year servant.  *Spoiler alert! In the book, the offense was much greater. We learn that Constantine's daughter was fathered by a white man. Her daughter was born with much lighter skin.  Light skin African Americans in the 1960s fell into a "no man's land" - neither black nor white. Constantine's daugher arrives at the Phelan plantation passing as a white woman during Skeeter's mother's DAR grand party. The dispute ensues from there.

I wondered if the director (who I believe also wrote the screenplay) felt the subject of "passing" was too foreign a concept in the 21st century.  Perhaps he would have had to provide too much back story to set up this storyline.  I'm not sure - I am sure that the storyline was pretty weak and made Mrs. Phelan appear much worse than even Miss Hilly Holbrook.

That being said, you can't go wrong by seeing the movie.  I've actually seen it twice and it held my attention just as firmly the second time as it did the first.

Have you read the book?  Seen the movie?  Both?  What are your thoughts?