Have you see “The Help” yet? I saw it last week with my daughters and would like to see it again. It is a wonderful movie–funny, poignant, challenging, inspiring. And it stayed true to the book, too. In fact, the book can drag at points and the movie actually tightened it up.

The casting for this movie was spot-on. I predict Abilene and Minnie (Viola Davis, Octavia Davis)will be Oscar nominees. The surprise character for me was Celia Foote. She nearly stole the show! The only character that didn’t seem to make a lot of sense was Stuart. I think they just wanted to show that Skeeter lost something, too, but they didn’t develop his character in any significant way. But I loved the relationship between Skeeter and her mother: fractious yet charming.

After I read the book, I was curious about the author and did a little digging. I mean, this is her debut novel and it is a WOW. My conclusion (aside from discovering that she was in the publishing industry, which always seems to help a debut novelist)…is I think she was Mae Mobley. I think this was her story. Probably the most memorable lines in the movie: “You is beautiful. You is smart. And you is important.”

Powerful! Abilene was giving Mae Mobley a blessing.

Go see the movie and let me know your thoughts!