*heavy sigh*

I really didn’t want to do this, gentle readers. By all accounts, this movie was a pandering and superficial piece of tripe. Even worse — much like The Blind Side before it — the movie claimed to be an uplifting story about racial equality, glossing over the fact that the characters of color need the help of a kind and pretty white person to get anywhere. Oh, and it’s a Participant Media flick, so preachiness is a given.

Alas, it was riding the momentum of Sandra Bullock’s win for The Blind Side, though I’m pretty sure she won that Oscar just for being Sandra Bullock. It also got a surprising box office run with a record number of consecutive weeks at #1, though that was mostly due to a fortuitous lack of competition.

I was hoping to ignore the film entirely, but I’m no fool. I knew that because the movie was profitable and sappy, in addition to the aforementioned Oscar success of its spiritual forebear a few years ago, awards buzz for this movie was not out of the question. Sure enough, the film picked up several nominations from such groups as the Screen Actors Guild, the Hollywood Foreign Press, and the People’s Choice Awards. It even managed to win a few accolades from the Hollywood Film Festival, the American Film Institute, and numerous film critic societies.

I can’t ignore this one any longer, folks. I can’t keep pretending that this isn’t a serious Oscar contender. I don’t have a choice. I have to review The Help.

Admittedly, Viola Davis did a lot to help me get into a neutral mindset. Davis’ narration was imbued with such sincerity and gravitas that her performance elevated the cliched and emotionally manipulative material. I had heard that her performance in this film was really damned good, and she convinced me of that within ten seconds.

Roughly fifteen minutes in, a pattern had become clear: The good aspects of this movie are really good and the bad aspects are really bad. This is mostly due to the story, since there is an extremely sharp divide between those characters we’re supposed to relate to and those we aren’t. Emma Stone, Viola Davis, and Octavia Spencer all play very intelligent characters, gifted with good hearts and all the best lines. Meanwhile, Bryce Dallas Howard and Allison Janney play brainless, bigoted, annoying parodies of humanity.

But as the film progressed, the line started to blur in a few places. Chris Lowell is one example, playing the male love interest who’s constantly flip-flopping between “total prick” and “halfway decent person.” Jessica Chastain plays another example, playing a woman who’s too darn stupid to realize that she’s acting like a tolerant person. It’s a solid performance, right up there with Chastain’s work in The Debt, Take Shelter, and Tree of Life. That is not praise I make lightly.

Anyway, the acting is really what makes this film worth watching. The actors playing “good” characters do a remarkable job playing relatable and fleshed-out people. As for the “bad” characters, they may be ungodly annoying and two-dimensional, but at least the actors involved are having fun.

Emma Stone, Viola Davis, Bryce Dallas Howard, Octavia Spencer, Jessica Chastain, and all the other actors involved are clearly bringing their A-game to this production. Alas, though the effort and talent are enough to elevate the material, it wasn’t enough to salvage the screenplay entirely. At first.

But then came the halfway point.

After all the superficial and mindless tripe, I was surprised to find this movie going to some very dark places. A murder happens just offscreen and it visibly shakes the entire black community. Another character has a miscarriage. I genuinely didn’t think this movie was equipped to go such places, but again, it’s the actors who see it through. There are a lot of genuinely great character drama moments in this film… until the film sinks back into sugary, cliched tedium for the third act.

The screenplay’s quality is all over the map. Sometimes it’s great, and sometimes it’s overwhelmingly cliched. I’ve heard the film called “offensive,” though I don’t really see it. Offensive, bigoted parodies of white people are everywhere in this movie, but all the black characters seemed very sweet and capable. I actually take more issue with the execution of the film’s central premise, which begins with a law concerning segregated bathrooms. This means that through the first half of the movie, we’re treated to several shots of characters on the toilet. It’s every bit as uncomfortable as it sounds.

Still, I’d say that the screenplay’s biggest problem is its pacing. Not only is the movie at least fifteen minutes longer than it needed to be, but it did a rather poor job at balancing all the character arcs. Spencer’s arc felt rushed, Stone’s arc ends before the climax, and only Davis is left to get the “wow” finish. I appreciate what the movie was trying to do, but these filmmakers just didn’t have the talent to develop all three characters in an even and balanced way.

I’d say that the only reason to watch The Help is the cast. I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen so many actors do so very much with so very little. The script is badly paced, most of the characters are stock, and all the best dramatic moments are sandwiched between so much lowest-common-denominator tripe. I really had to work at getting through the first hour of this movie, and any movie that feels like work generally isn’t looking forward to a good write-up.

Put simply, I’d say that this movie was meant to be cinematic comfort food. It was blatantly designed to appeal to all four quadrants while taking as few risks as possible. Tonally, this movie is a jack of all trades and a master of none. There is certainly a place for such movies. I can understand the appeal of them and I wouldn’t take them away from anyone. I’m just not the target audience for that sort of thing. I absolutely respect the talent that went into The Help, and it’s certainly better than I initially gave it credit for, but I don’t think it was for me.