"The Help"

 Not many Academy Award winning movies open during the summer months, but "The Help" will be first in line when nominations are announced.
 Based on the novel of the same name by Kathryn Stockett, it could get Best Picture and Adapted Screenplay nods as well as a Best Actress look for Viola Davis (Aibileen Clark) as well as a supporting nod for Octavia Spencer (Minny Jackson).
 It definitely is a chick flick, mainly in the sense that men are used only as a backdrop. No matter. But the real backdrop for the movie is the 1960s in racially divided Mississippi.
 Emma Stone plays Skeeter, home from college at Ole Miss. She lands a job at the local Jackson newspaper writing a housekeeping column, though she yearns for much more. She gets help from Aibileen, an African-American maid and friend of the maid who helped raise her. Through her interaction with Aibileen, she sees the injustices the maids go through at the hands of the girls she grew up with. She decides to write a book from the maids' point of view, first assisted by Aibileen and joined later by Minny. Skeeter is in a difficult position, being friends with the women she will ultimately write about, and her decisions lead the movie where it needs to go.
 It is maddening, touching and funny all rolled into one with outstanding performances all around. Bryce Dallas Howard is Hilly Holbrook, the antagonist who drives most of the action with her abuse of the maids and her rule of the young wives clique. Allison Janney gets uglied up to play Skeeter's dying mother who has issues of her own and Sissy Spacek, who I've never liked, does an excellent job as Holbrook's mother. Jessica Chastain is Celia Foote who is the same age as the rest of the women, yet outside the clique for a few reasons. Chastain may have a shot at an Oscar nod as well.
 Make no mistake, though, while she'll be called a supporting actress, Spencer's portrayal of Minny is what makes the movie. She steals every scene she's in and you can't help but root for her.
 Definitely worth the money and makes you want to read the book, since the book is almost always better than the movie.