“The Help”, although based on a novel, is a surprisingly insightful, witty and at times painful look into how the lives of whites and blacks intertwined in the 1960’s American South.

The film focuses on the lives of Minny (Octavia Spencer) and Aibileen (Viola Davis), two black maids living and working in Jacksonville, Mississippi. Much of the beginning of the film is a sobering picture of the lives of these hardworking women who are hired to keep house and raise the children of wealthy white families. Director Tate Taylor weaves the story of these strong women quite skillfully; the disturbing contrast of the maids to many of the delusional and manipulative white women is superb.

The film begins to pick up when the hardworking and forward-thinking Skeeter Phelan (Emma Stone) is introduced to the story. Skeeter is fresh out of college and distinctly unlike the other white women in Jacksonville; she works for a living and wants to be a professional journalist. As Skeeter begins to integrate herself back into Jacksonville life, she sticks out amongst the crowd as someone who treats everyone around her as though they are on the same playing field. She is interested and even emotionally invested in the lives of the help since a black woman raised her.

Skeeter continues to observe as the severe segregation and inappropriate treatment of blacks occur, she realizes that she’s stumbled upon a controversial topic to write about. After cajoling one maid into help her with the project, more are pulled in to tell their stories, some funny and others horrific, of working for the white families of Jacksonville. She records the stories of the help and publishes them, which instigates a chain of reactions from the white women of Jacksonville.

The film is a new twist on a controversial topic that has been hashed out in plenty of films and books, but Stone’s magnetic personality and quickly maturing acting abilities add the magic ingredient to “The Help.”