The Help

The Help is one of the best films that I have seen in a long time. It is a political/family drama. It has Emma Stone in the lead role of Eugenia Phelan (Skeeter). It is set in Mississippi, which means nothing to me but mud pie. It also stars Viola Davis and Bryce Dallas Howard.

You meet the Aibileen and Skeeter. They seem to be getting along just fine. But then there is a flashback and you see who Aibileen works for. She is the narrator throughout the film, and it gives an insight into her life. You are taken through a series of situations that the maids have had to go through, you see the things that they had to face on a daily basis and it does make you think. You see Minny getting fired for using the toilet during a thunderstorm. And then you see everything get better for Skeeter and her book. And what I think is the saddest part of this whole film; this is when we find out what really happened to Constantine (Skeeter’s maid).

The film was so well made, and well written and well directed and everything. I don’t quite understand why I find this film so amazing, but I do. The film has a cohesive aspect to it, as it doesn’t start at the beginning of the whole story, but starts at the start of the actual stories in the book, which I think was quite a smart idea. Tate Taylor has definitely outdone himself, and I think that this is one of his better films. Of course a lot of the respect goes to Kathryn Stockett who wrote the novel of the same name.

I really enjoyed this film; it was a film about one of the darker times in history (that isn’t meant to be a racist pun). The film is all about a very serious issue, but it still keeps it quite light hearted and funny. The slave trade isn’t the only hard issue that it is about though; it is about domestic abuse and illness during pregnancy too, which are both issues that affect a lot of people. Definitely worth a watch.

Gone

Gone is a thriller, not great, but not awful either. Amanda Seyfried takes the lead role of Jill Conway. The film also stars Jennifer Carpenter and Wes Bentley. The film is set in Portland, which honestly means nothing to me…I know jack shit about the geography of the U.S.A.

So, basically it goes that Jill was kidnapped a few years back and after it happened her parents died and so she has been in psych wards and on suicide watch because of all the crap that went down over a short period of time. Next thing you know – as if this girl needs anymore stress – her sister goes missing and Jill is convinced that it is the same guy that took and tried to kill her. So, like any sane person, she goes to the police and then - with the police being as shit as they are - they don’t believe her. So she does their job herself, and she goes on a hunt for her kidnapper and her sister.

The whole film was kind of basic, I wasn’t seriously impressed by anyone aspect of it. The editing was typical of a thriller, the placement of music, the jump shots…yadayadayada. But to be honest, the fact that it stuck to the norms of thriller film editing was quite good, as it kind of needs to be all jumpy and dark and shit to make it any good. It took me like forty minutes to watch the last ten minutes of the film, because I had to keep pausing it to calm myself down (but that’s because I’m a whimp)

Anyway, on the whole the film is good. Films starring Amanda Seyfried do tend to be of a mint quality. But they could have veered off from the norm a little bit, because the film as a whole was pretty standard. Honestly, don’t really care too much, because I genuinely really enjoyed the film. I’m thinking that fans of Untraceable would probably like this film.

War Horse

“War horse, there he is, a strange beast you’ve become.” Nice quote? Yeah, I agree, bloody good film as well. War Horse is an adventure film directed by the one and only Steven Spielberg, just from that, the film is already epic. The cast of the film include Jeremy Irvine taking on the main human role of Albert. You also have Peter Mullan, Emily Watson, Tom Hiddleston, Toby Kebbell and Matt Milne, no majorly famous faces, but you’ll recognise them when you see them. The film is set during WWI and the majority of the film is in France.

Albert is a young boy and his father goes out and buys a horse, but he buys a thoroughbred instead of the plough horse that the family needs, so Albert takes it upon himself to train the horse, who he names Joey. When torrential rain ruins the family’s chances of getting a good harvest, Albert’s father sells Joey to the British Cavalry. This film is based around Joey and Albert’s relationship and mainly follows Joey and he changes owner.

This set design for this film was extraordinary. Less and less films are war dramas and even if they are, they aren’t usually based on the First World War. This film portrayed it so well though, the sets were perfect, the costumes were amazing, especially in love with the uniforms. The locations that were chosen were wise choices. No Man’s land was shown brilliantly, I was genuinely astounded by the quality.

The best part of the film for me was in No Man’s Land, where our Geordie soldier Colin and Peter, the German soldier, come together to save Joey and then flip a coin to decide who gets the horse. It was brilliant, just casually showing towards the end of the film that the simplest of things can bring enemies together for one cause.

This film is an emotional rollercoaster; it’s happy, sad and everything in between. It is a story about a friendship that literally goes through war and still remains intact. If you liked E.T. and Lassie, this is definitely a film you’ll enjoy. I wouldn’t say that this is a kid’s film, because I genuinely enjoyed it, and I can guarantee that I’m not seven years old, so yes, I’m vouching for this film and saying go out of your way to watch it.