The movie tie-in edition of Kathryn Stockett’s best-selling novel the film is based on – The Help – went on-sale yesterday! Although, based on your reactions to our posts about the film thus far, I’m betting most of you won’t be rushing out to pick up a copy of your own, despite the new cover as shown below 🙂

Having read the book, I can say that while your concerns about the film are certainly warranted, this is actually a rare instance in mainstream/studio cinema history that places the black maid/white employer relationship under a microscope, in which we get to see events unfold from the black maid’s POV (at least for part of the novel), and are given a much more complex representation of her. She isn’t a 2-dimensional stereotype here. There are a lot of scenes for Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer to chew on, and whether or not the film succeeds in translating their characters to film remains to be seen. As the saying often goes, the book is usually better than the movie.

So I’d strongly suggest that if you do plan on ever seeing the film, when it’s eventually released, make sure you read the book first!