The Help is a 2011 American period drama film directed and written by Tate Taylor, based on Kathryn Stockett's 2009 novel of the same name. The film stars Emma Stone, Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jessica Chastain, Allison Janney, Sissy Spacek, Mike Vogel and Cicely Tyson. The story follows Eugenia Skeeter Phelan (Stone), a white girl from Jackson, Mississippi who becomes an aspiring journalist during the early 1960s civil rights movement and decides to write a book about African American maids working in white households in her town.
To research her book project on African Americans in the domestic sphere in early-1960s Jackson, Mississippi, Skeeter (Emma Stone) interviews Aibileen (Viola Davis), Minny (Octavia Spencer) and other maids who work for white families. As word of her project gets out through these women's network of friends and acquaintances throughout the black community – as well as through her own family – resistance to what could be seen as a controversial book grows. But with the encouragement of Aibileen and Minny – as well as that of her best friend Hilly Holbrook (Bryce Dallas Howard), whose own housemaid has mysteriously disappeared – Skeeter persists with writing what will become an explosive exposé on race relations in Jackson at that time.
The film was released on August 10, 2011 to critical acclaim; it earned over $200 million worldwide at the box office and won several awards including Academy Awards for Best Picture,[4] Best Actress for Davis,[5] Best Supporting Actress for Spencer,[6] and Best Adapted Screenplay for Taylor.[7]