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Next time I bring my family...


When I go see a movie from a book I read, I go into it thinking what I see on the big screen will be different from what I see in my head. In some instances such as The Lightning Thief, I am disappointed. While in others, I am pleasantly surprised as in Stand By Me. And then there are the ones that I contemplate whether I should go see it in the theaters. For me most recently, that movie was The Help.

While reading the book, I became a part of it. It did not matter that the setting took place in a time (1963) and location (Jackson, Mississippi) for which I have no familiarity. Characters felt as if they were friends. It was a book that got inside of me. A book that needed time to roll around in my head for a few days after I finished it. Needless to say, when I heard there was a movie coming out, I was excited about it. Albeit, a bit apprehensive as well. Would the movie have the same impact on me the book did?
I walked into a crowded theater today shortly before the movie began. A diversity of age, race, and gender filled the seats. Black, white, old, young, men, and women. All of us bringing our own experiences to the story. I wondered how we would each view it. (For those who don’t know, the book/movie takes place in Jackson, Mississippi in 1963. A college-educated white woman who is aspiring to be a writer gathers stories about working for white women from black maids.) I was soon to find out Hollywood’s interpretation.

Within five minutes, I was sitting in Jackson, MS at Albileen’s kitchen table as she tells her story. For the next two and a half hours, I was in on the secret. I laughed. I cried. I enjoyed the commentary from the older woman in front of me. While the story was not exactly told the way it was in the book, it was told in a way that mesmerized me none-the-less. Even when watching news footage of JFK’s assassination and Medgar Evar’s shooting a realism to the time period occurred. (These were the times I thought of the older generation sitting in the theater. I would love to have a couple of hours to sit with them and hear their stories about the time period and living in the south.)

The story does not tie itself up neatly. Nor does life. As the credits began to roll, I sat looking at the screen slowly coming back to find myself in 2011 in Wake Forest, NC. I began to wonder…..whose story needs to be told in 2011?

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