The Final Conclusion - Best Actress 2011

2011

So the much anticipated ranking:

5. Michelle Williams in My Week with Marilyn

I suppose my biggest issue with this performance was that Michelle could have been given so much more. She's proven it over the years that she's able to perform miracles on the screen with the right material. Well, this material just wasn't right for her. She did all that she could with this part, both technically and emotionally. It's a great performance, it's just not something to go crazy about.

4. Glenn Close in Albert Nobbs

Great Glenn's performance as Albert is not her best work, and it doesn't have the totally mindblowing and disturbing effect of some of her other roles, it's a wonderfully touching and emotional performance. It may not give you a huge experience, it's like reading a chapter from a classic novel: inspiring, uplifting and beautiful in itself and more than serves its purpuse. I stand by her!

3. Rooney Mara in The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo

Rooney Mara gives a wonderful, impressive and very complex performance as Lisbeth Salander. What may seem robotic to others is just pure greatness for me. She brilliantly portrays her character's vulnerability and humiliation, but also her cool and incredibly exciting personality. She shows so many sides and reveals so many layers of this woman so effortlessly that she might come off as doing no acting at all.

2. Viola Davis in The Help

Viola Davis is able to give a layered and heartbreaking performance as Aibileen. In each and every moment of the film, she's endlessly loveable, showing so many emotions and faces of this character. Her incredible talent shines through this somewhat thin material and is able to be wonderfully moving, natural and funny at the same time. I have my isssues about her role, but she's just fantastic

1. Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady

In the end, this is a very obvious choice in every possible way. Meryl is everything that a Best Actress winner should be. She gives a fantastic performance as Margaret Thatcher. She's just brilliant in the technical part of her performance, nails the emotional scenes and she's just thoroughly impressive playing this very controversial and divisive character. Simply brilliant.

 So I can proudly announce

that the winner is...

Meryl Streep 

in 

The Iron Lady

Hail Meryl!

Final thoughts: So Meryl wins her third... from me at the very least and FROM THE ACADEMY AS WELL! YAY!. :) Moreover, she's set a record as my only three time winner so far. Moreover, she's also my first consecutive winner. :) I hope that I won't get too repetitive with Meryl. After the rare vicious comments about her in the past, I feel like going back to her. She's downright brilliant as Thatcher. Viola was also fantastic and I wouldn't be mad if she won (I would be happy for her), just quite disappointed. Michelle was an obvious fifth, Great Glenn and Rooney were pretty much equal to me. My love for Great Glenn caused kind of a controversy here, but I was incredibly glad about the supportive comments. And I'm not someone who remains ungrateful so mrripley, Louis and Fritz can all pick a year (and of course, the previously requested years of Louis and Fritz will be done next, I just didn't have time, sorry). Thank you guys! Also, congrats to Joe Burns and greysie on the correct predictions, they can also pick a year! (Available years: 1933, 1938, 1951, 1953, 1956, 1960, 1967, 1968, 1981, 1985, 1988, 1991, 1993, 1994, 1999, 2000, 2008)

Omissions: Kristen Wiig in Bridesmaids; (haven't seen the others yet, but planning to) 

The next year: 

• I Want To Live: The sequel!
• Klute: The Sequel! 

What do you think? Any thoughts on your mind? Any comments on this  Oscar year (I'll do some posts and rankings on it during the weekend)?

Winner Breakdown: Best Actress

Best Actress:
- Glenn Close (Albert Nobbs)
- Viola Davis (The Help)
- Rooney Mara (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo)
- Meryl Streep (The Iron Lady)
- Michelle Williams (My Week with Marilyn)


The big competition is in these 2 top acting categories. It's Meryl vs Viola for Best Actress, and Jean vs George in Best Actor, but I'll cover the latter tomorrow. Meryl Streep played Margaret Thatcher, both as a young(ish) woman, a woman in her 60's and an Alzheimer-riddled 90 year old. She was great as the younger Thatcher, speaking very regally and saying these inspirational quotes, I didn't completely buy it. Something about it reminded me of her role in Julie and Julia, and some other films. It was great (because its Meryl) but I was always thinking Meryl rather than Margaret. However, Meryl as the 90 year old woman is where she completely shines. She looks, acts, talks like an old woman. She completely nails it, from the shaky hands, to the slow hunched walk, and even in the makeup. Then we have Viola. Viola played Aibileen, a black maid in Mississippi in the 1950's (or 60s?). She is a woman she is sick and tired of how her and the other maids are being treated, how Hilly Holbrook is making things even worse by making them have their own toilets, and how the children love her but when they grow up, they become their mamas. She teams up with a young woman named Skeeter, who's writing a book from the point of view of the Help. Viola Davis was fantastic in this role, through and through. We can see in her face how worn she is, and how broken. But there is a power behind her too, and Viola is able to carry off both parts of Aibileen. But who will win? Right now Viola and Meryl are pretty neck in neck. Viola has the Critics Choice Award and the SAG, while Meryl has the BAFTA and the Golden Globe. Many people say Meryl is overdue for her 3rd Oscar, having not won in 29 years. Viola Davis has been nominated before, in 2009, without a win. Will the Academy choose the honor Viola, making her only the 2nd Black Woman to win Best Actress? Or will they go with Meryl, finally giving her her 3rd Oscar (Honestly, she should've won for Julia Child, that was just fantastic). I'm leaning towards Viola taking the win, here. She had a strong performance, and Meryl already holding 2 Oscars might be against her. However, it's anyone's race, although as much as I love Meryl Streep, I'm rooting hardcore for Viola, and will be really upset if she doesn't win. 

Will Win: Viola Davis
Could Win: Meryl Streep
Dark Horse: Rooney Mara
Who I Want to Win: Viola Davis

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, 2011
Directed by Stephen Daldry
Nominations Include Best Picture and Best Supporting Actor.

Synopsis: Oskar Schell is special child. Being an amateur inventor, pacifist, tambourine-player, etc, he and his father have a special connection, playing a game called "reconnaissance expedition", which Oskar must find clues and solve mysteries his father sets him on which makes him talk to people, and do more things he's scared of, all while learning. But then tragedy strikes and his father is killed in 9/11. Oskar is shattered, and feels alone, scared, and angry. A year after his death he finds a key in his father's closet, labelled black, inside a vase he breaks by accident. Immediately he assumes it's another clue, something he needs to figure out, and he sets out to find the lock for this key, and to try to find out what his father left him.

I watched the trailer for this film several months ago, when the initial buzz started forming around this film. I remember watching it and thinking "seriously? Best Picture potential?" and I shrugged it off, knowing it was stlil 2 or 3 months until it's release. Then  it got nominated for Best Picture (after poor reviews) and again I thought, really? But knowing it was one of 2 films I still needed to see of the nominees, I'd have to go see it. I opened my mind to give it a blank slate, and expected nothing of it. I gave it a chance.

And, well, it wasn't horrible, but it wasn't that great either. Hm, where to start this review.

Oskar was an extremely unsympathetic character, which probably would've been a lot better read in the book. You can get away with a lot more things in books than you can on film. And I think this film was a good example. Oskar would frequently ask nosy questions he really had no business asking strangers, he had many quirks about him (like shaking a tambourine to calm himself), counting his lies, listing the things he was afraid of, giving random facts and just having a general inner-monologue that was slightly unnecessary in a film. All would've worked well in the book, but didn't work quite as well on film. Additionally, a lot of the time Oskar would say things about himself, but would act almost hypocritically later. For instance, he has a fear of bridges, but darts right across when the Renter (a mute neighbor of his who offers to help him on his quest) offers to share his story. He's also scared of public transit, but is okay once the Renter, once again, coaxes him on, and they exchange Oxymorons (his father and him used to have "Oxy-moron wars"). This was no fault of Thomas Horn's (the actor of Oskar), or even Jonathan San Froer's (the authors). It was that of the screenwriter, who didn't seem to follow through on things written. Additionally, there seems to be much more to Oskar than is shown in the film. We get a list read to us that he's an Inventor, a Francophile, a Pacifist, and we never get to see any of that. We only get it read to us on a list.

Thomas Horn, who played Oskar, was quite good, but you can tell he has not had too much experience. This is Thomas Horn's very first film, and I must say he did quite well for this being his first. However, many of the voice-overs were very monotone, and he, in fact, spoke monotone a lot of the time, except for when he was angry and yelling (the latter, he did very, very well). He was convincing as the quirky, unique Oskar, even if a little stiff or awkward at times.

One part I was excited for about this film though, was Alexandre Desplat would be scoring it. Desplat, being my favourite film composer, I was delighted, and as always, he didn't disappoint. His music was simple, and so melancholy, but it had a great effect. Mr. Desplat was indeed snubbed this year, missing out on several different opportunities, having scored Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows Part II, Carnage, The Ides of March, and a Better Life.

While the summaries of this story boast about it being about Oskar's quest to find the lock that the key his father had, it isn't really. While it certainly was a part of it, it wasn't too as well as it could've been. Many a times we see little clips of the different people he visited (usually all looking purposefully at the camera, no Oskar involved), or very small clips with no conversation where we see Oskar interacting. We get the idea he's met so many people, since we see him scrap-booking pictures of everyone he's met, but we don't really get to see any of that, besides one or two characters. Instead, what we mostly see if the many tantrums of Oskar, the many times he leaves his apartment in the night, in his pajamas, out doing something or other, or flashbacks to "the worst day". In a way, I felt like, well, not a lot happened. The movie didn't go very far forward, and I felt like we had very little character development. Most of the time Oskar was rude to the Renter, or his mother, or the doorman, or he was in his room either crying, or looking at his maps. It could've been a meaningful story,  had the option of the people he'd met, heard their stories, and realizing we all have stories, and we've all lost someone. It could've been very impactful. Instead that route isn't taken and it's a shame. There was potential.

Overall, the word that floated through my mind while watching this movie was "pretentious". I had never really understood what people meant when they said a film tried too hard. I do now. It tried to hard to be "deep", it tried too hard to have a quirky little boy, and it tried too hard to show Oskar's grief and his thoughts. Several times in the film we get this image of a man falling through the air (presumably out of one of the twin towers), and it just seems so forced. Force for an emotional reaction. Of course, there is one (as I could tell from the sniffling from those around me in the audience), but the times that were the saddest were the conversation, were the "i love you"s that were almost unheard, and those moments that seemed more natural. Those were the moments where the film was at it's best, and really had something going for it. But in the end, I feel like we hardly moved forward. It was countless moments of Oskar being sad, when we could've gotten more in-depth to some of the people Oskar and the Renter met. While it was a sad film with a good message, it look a long time to get there, and with too many 2d characters.

Will it win Best Picture? It hasn't a hope. I still wonder why it was nominated, especially given that it had to get at least 5% of the overall number #1 choice votes. While it was an okay film, it was definitely the bottom of the 9 nominated, though I have seen a lot, a lot worse films this year. And Max von Sydow hasn't a hope either. Christopher Plummer already has it all wrapped up. Not that I thought Von Sydow's performance was particularly noticeable, much less award-worthy, but nevertheless.

Not a terrible movie, but not a great one either. Again, when asked if I liked this film, I simply shrugged, because there wasn't a whole lot to say about it. It was just okay.

6.5/10

Viola Davis in The Help

Viola Davis made history and became only the second black actress to receive two Oscar nominations. She received the honor for playing Aibileen Clark, a maid who helps out an aspiring young writer with some of her stories about her life as a domestic. At the beginning of the award season, Viola Davis was the absolute front-runner to win the Oscar and if I can be honest, I was really surprised that she didn't win the Golden Globe because this is really a performance that they usually love (I guess they love Meryl more). I guess the SAG love for Viola meant that she's clearly the front-runner once again (I wonder about how the BAFTA will influence the race). 

Although The Help is not an amazing piece of filmmaking, it's a very entertaining and moving film with a cheesy story. Naturally, it's sentimental but it just adds to its charm. However, the film's strength lies in the almost all-female cast. Each and every actress gives a wonderful performance. Octavia Spencer and Jessica Chastain are both wonderful and deserving of the Academy Award but I'm going to root for Octavia because I think Jessica will have a better shot at winning in the future (and she will win as a leading actress, just a matter of time). I should also mention Allison Janney and Cicely Tyson who do wonders with their roles and provided some of the most moving moments of the film. I wish they had received more recognition for their work. 

Four years ago, Viola Davis was a Tony-winning stage actress who got supporting parts in movies occasionally. However, along came Doubt, in which she outshone Meryl Streep with a six-minute-long, heartbreaking scene, where she gave a terrific performance and for which she should have won the Oscar. In the following year, her situation and parts did not seem to change: all she got was bit parts in action flicks and romantic comedies. Being aware of her talent, it's kind of shocking that she had to make do with those bit parts. No wonder Meryl Streep pleaded at the SAG awards to get Viola a movie. We all know how much Hollywood listents to Meryl and she got Viola that movie, but also got her main rival for the Oscar. 

Gone with the Wind showed us the idealistic, happy house slave, Mammy who would sacrifice herself to help the family she's working for and her beloved Miss Scarlett. Some criticised Hattie McDaniel for playing these very clichéd images of a black woman but she said 'I'd rather play a maid than be one'. Seventy-two years later, we get to see a new and deeper (?) image of domestics in The Help. In a way, the characters of The Help are also clichés and maybe the products of white guilt, but somehow Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer solved this problem: Octavia with her wonderful comic skills and Viola with her dignified and gracious personality.

It's so interesting that The Help wants to be about social equality and yet it didn't have the courage to make a black character the real lead of the picture. In a way, the character of Aibileen is forced to the back of the bus to give the longer storyline to Skeeter's character. That's the reason why it's almost impossible to decide if Viola is leading or supporting character. She's co-lead at best and a sidekick despite the fact that she's far and away the most interesting and layered character of the film. I started to wonder if Aibileen is the most intriguing and heartbreaking character because of the writing or Viola Davis' enormous talent. Let's get this straight: if Viola Davis was a white woman, she would just flow in great parts and Oscars. I am not necessarily saying that Hollywood people are still as racist as the 1960 Mississippi but they still don't have the courage to make a black woman the real lead. They still think in white. But an actress of Viola's calibre would deserve to play all the great parts you could ever imagine.

I guess the fact that Viola is mainly a stage actress still helps her a great deal in her film acting. Her face is so expressive and her whole personality bursts with energy and emotionality. I think she's used to showing her emotions in a very big way and that's why we often get to see a huge amount of tears coming from her. I'm not suggesting at all by this that she's theatrical, far from it: she converts all the necessary stage "tricks" to the big screen, and the results are just wonderful. The reason why I love her so much is probably due to the fact that she reminds me of the greatest Hungarian actors/actresses. Here, it's stage first and then comes the movie and they clearly know the characters more than the film actresses. It's just that they would be able to play the whole thing at once and be just as great.

What we see about Aibileen is that she has a story. In every movement of hers, Viola is revealing something about her, tells a new story and reveals a new layer and depth. Viola wonderfully tells the background of Aibileen: the scene where she talks about her sons death is as heartbreaking as a scene can get (Oscar clip, watch out). What I was amazed at was Viola's ability to create something so natural and wonderful from such cheesy lines. Everything is pure and clean about her, she's free of fake behaviour and sentimentality. 

But honestly, for me the most amazing thing about Viola was how well she showed the love and faith inside Aibileen. She's an embodiment and representation of everything that faith should be about: telling the truth and loving. Her face in the church scene is just wonderful, we just see how touched she's by the message and how she's trying to live according to it.

Another very touching aspect of Viola's performance is the way she shows Aibileen's relationship with her baby girl, Mae Mobley. She shows a very intimate and beautiful relationship between the to of them and I just refuse to believe there's anyone who can keep dry eyes during the last scene where she's saying 'You is kind. You is smart. You is important.' Again, a very cheesy, sentimental line that Viola makes wonderfully moving and wonderful. 

However, Viola's performance is not only moving and loveable, it's also full of humor and gentle irony once she's in the company of Octavia Spencer. Their wonderful scenes cover a wide range of emotions: they are fooling around in the kitchen during the bridge party or comforting each other after Aibileen's character was running from the scene of a terrible murder (Viola portrays Aibileen's fear so heartbreakingly, she made her so vulnerable there). But honestly, it's their scene in the church in the end is the most moving of all: again, it's very sentimental, but somehow so loveable (that perfectly sums up the movie as well). When I first saw the movie and really got under its effect, I felt they were applauded for their future Oscar wins (silly, I know, but it felt like such a moment).

In the end, in a secondary part, Viola Davis is able to give the most layered and heartbreaking performance as Aibileen in The Help. In each and every moment of the film, she's endlessly loveable, showing so many emotions and faces of this character. Her incredible talent shines through this somewhat thin material and is able to be wonderfully moving, natural and funny at the same time. Beautiful, wonderful work for which Viola would deservedly win the Oscar. 

What do you think? 

The Next Year

2011

So the nominees are:

• Glenn Close in Albert Nobbs
• Viola Davis in The Help
• Rooney Mara in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
• Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady
• Michelle Williams in My Week with Marilyn

So, another year has come and as of now, the race is very exciting. All of them have a more or less legitimate shot at winning (except for maybe Rooney) so we'll just have to wait until SAG announces (tonight) :). 

But more importantly ;), who will get my vote? What do you think? Can Meryl get her third win from me (and become my first consecutive winner)? Or will I go with one of the four other fantastic ladies, including Great Glenn? Who's your pick? What's your prediction for my ranking? (I'm really interested in that) :) 

008. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

008. (05 Jan) /Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close/ (2011, Stephen Daldry)* 82



On a second viewing, I can truly appreciate what powerful filmmaking this is. The emotional weight Daldry lends to both simple scenes, like Thomas Horn's scenes opposite Jeffrey Wright and Viola Davis, and the powerhouse ones like Horn's with Bullock. It's a rarity when fine acting, focused direction, and technical achievement combine like this. Chris Menges' cinematography and Alexandre Desplat's score are especially wonderful.

The film itself is repeatedly an outright devastating experience. I can scarcely recall being more moved by situational sadness or finely drawn connections between characters. Daldry continues to be the most accomplished of emotion-driven directors working today.

486. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

486. (07 Dec) Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011, Stephen Daldry)* 82

408. The Help

408. (03 Sep) The Help (2011, Tate Taylor)* 54



The Help is so cloying and manipulative, it's almost implausible a performance like Viola Davis' can exist within it. The film simply doesn't deserve her, as Davis gives a performance with such grace and nuance the rest of the cast looks amateurish in her wake. The bug-eyed Octavia Spencer, for instance, is positively exhausting to watch, playing broad comedy as if she wandered out of a TBS sitcom. I'm unclear how both of these ladies can be considered on par in Oscar buzz.

The film itself is so shamelessly tear-jerking, sentimental, and crowd-pleasing, it seems destined for a Best Picture nomination. That's an excessive honor, to be sure, for a film that overplays a poopy pie joke and derails in its unrelentingly upbeat finale. (A senile Sissy Spacek saying she can only remember that she was put in a nursing home by Bryce Dallas Howard and that her daughter ate poop is where the gag has clearly been beaten to death.) The lengthy run-time is felt in the last hour when an out of nowhere argument erupts between Emma Stone and Chris Lowell. For the most part, The Help is well-structured enough to maintain interest, but the need to tie up loose ends with the last few scenes is the film's undoing.

Sharen Davis' costumes would be a worthy awards competitor. A plaid jacket Lowell wears in his second scene with Stone is an outstanding costumes and all of the work here easily outshines her forgettable garbs from Ray and Dreamgirls. She rivals Anna B. Sheppard as one of those costume designers with no range, but she's in her wheelhouse with The Help.

UPDATED September 1 Oscar predictions

It's about that time again.  In the weeks since my initial, first of the year predictions, not all that much has changed but a few hits and misses have been identified.  In particular, Tate Taylor's racial drama The Help was helped by decent reviews and a surprisingly stellar box office.  Given the Academy's "feel good" nature of late, this is the first certified Best Picture nominee of the year, and with it the one-two performances of Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer (however, the category whereabouts of Miss Davis has yet to be identified, but many are speculating Lead, though this type of role typically lands a win in Supporting).

Others interesting notes, Roman Polanski's Carnage, George Clooney's political drama The Ides of March, and David Cronenberg's S&M-laced A Dangerous Method have made an interesting splash at the Venice Film Festival, but none have registered quite the level of enthusiasm granted towards Black Swan last year.  In the meantime, I've personally begun to turn more speculative towards Clint Eastwood's too-good-to-be-true J. Edgar.  Clint hasn't been hitting on all cylinders since he made a surprise splash into the 2006 Best Picture race with Letters from Iwo Jima.  That is one I'll wait for the payoff to predict.  Techs coming soon.

BEST PICTURE

The Artist

*The Descendants

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
The Help

The Ides of March
*J. Edgar

Midnight in Paris

*My Week with Marilyn

Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy
War Horse
(* indicates those I'm predicting only in an overflow capacity)

BEST DIRECTOR

Michael Hazanavicius, The Artist
David Cronenberg, A Dangerous Method

Stephen Daldry, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris

Steven Spielberg, War Horse
(Eastwood out, Allen in)

BEST ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE

George Clooney, The Descendants

Leonardo DiCaprio, J. Edgar

Jean DuJardin, The Artist

Michael Fassbender, A Dangerous Method

Gary Oldman, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
(Unchanged)

BEST ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE

Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs

Viola Davis, The Help

Elizabeth Olsen, Martha Marcy May Marlene

Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady

Michelle Williams, My Week with Marilyn
(Felicity Jones out, David in)

BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

Kenneth Branagh, My Week with Marilyn

Albert Brooks, Drive

Viggo Mortensen, A Dangerous Method

Christopher Plummer, Beginners
Christoph Waltz, Carnage
(Seymour Hoffman out, Waltz in)

BEST ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

Zoe Caldwell, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Vanessa Redgrave, Coriolanus
Octavia Spencer, The Help

Marisa Tomei, The Ides of March

Shailene Woodley, The Descendants
(Tomei out, Spencer in; Redgrave new projected winner)

THE HELP

Written and Directed by Tate Taylor

Starring Emma Stone, Viola Davis, Bryce Dallas Howard and Octavia Spencer

Aibileen: What if you don't like what I got to say 'bout white people?

Jackson, Mississippi has a rich history but it certainly also has its fair share of shame. Great turmoil does however make for great drama in novice filmmaker, Tate Taylor’s THE HELP, based on the wildly popular novel of the same name, written by Kathryn Stockett, one of Tate’s oldest friends. They grew up together in the South and their combined familiarity with the subject gives them the distinct perspective necessary to explore the complicated dynamics between white families and the black maids that kept them together. While it is perfectly acceptable for the maids to handle the dinner and the children, it is somehow unthinkable to have them use the same toilet. That's the way it was in Jackson in 1962 and even though some practices were just a step or two away from slavery still, everybody kept to their roles with big smiles on their faces. That's just the way it was done, the way it had always been done … until someone finally started asking why.

In the 1960's, America was in the throes of the civil rights movement. Martin Luther King Jr. led a quarter million people in prayer at the March on Washington and progress seemed achievable. Meanwhile, in the South, black men and women were being beaten senseless, or worse yet killed, for any attempt to push the civil rights movement forward. It was most certainly not a good time for a black maid to sit down and recount what working for white people was really like. It would seem even more ludicrous to share these potentially damaging stories with an actual white woman. Regardless, this is what Aibileen (Viola Davis) does when Eugenia (Emma Stone) asks her, not because she's always done what white women have asked of her, but because it was time. The stories she tells are both heartbreaking and heart warming, revealing just how complex these relationships truly are. There is love between some of these women, of that there is no question. And yet there is also superiority and ownership and perhaps most importantly, there is tradition. This is what all these women know. Change is not easy; making change is even harder.

There is so much unrest in these situations but you would never know. The trick is to never let on, a perfect glow must shine on the surface at all times. Of course, it is all terribly ironic that these maids are the ones to polish these particular surfaces. That said, there is plenty of shine in THE HELP. Taylor’s lack of experience behind the camera shows when certain delicate moments feel a tad rushed, but that hardly matters when the entire cast is this delightful and endearing. While it is refreshing to see Stone play something other than sarcastic for a change, and naturally Davis anchors the picture with great weight, it is Bryce Dallas Howard as queen of the white ladies, Hilly Holbrook, and lesser know, Octavia Spencer, as the feistiest of maids, Minny, who truly give THE HELP the punch it requires to become as memorable and enjoyable as it is. Collectively, the entire cast, rounded out by touching performances from Sissy Spacek and Alison Janney, maintain an air of ease, which is even more so commendable considering how they all know somewhere in the back of their minds that everything they know is about to change forever. The best part is that you can also see that some of these women know this change is for the best.