The Help

I went to the movies again this week with a couple of friends.
It's so nice to spend a day out with some girl friends, having coffee, catching a movie and chatting on the journey there and back.

This time we saw the movie The Help.

What a really good movie.
It brought one or two tears to my eyes (and some of those around me) and even more moving as you know it is based on a true story

The Help is based on the novel of the same name, by Kathryn Stockett .

Set in Mississippi during the civil rights movement of the 1960s, a southern society aspiring author returns from college determined to become a writer, but turns her friends' lives -- and a small Mississippi town -- upside down when she decides to write a book detailing the African American Maid's point of view of the White families they work for, and their hardships they go through on a day to day basis. She tries to interview the black women who have spent their lives taking care of prominent southern families. Aibileen, Skeeter's best friend's housekeeper, is the first to open up -- to the dismay of her friends in the tight-knit black community. Despite Skeeter's life-long friendships hanging in the balance, she and Aibileen continue their collaboration and soon more women come forward to tell their stories -- and as it turns out, they have a lot to say.

This movie has made me put the book on my list of reads.
It certainly gave me an education into the lives of southern Americans in the 1960's I wasn't aware of.