Movie Movie Podcast

*All character names are taken from “The Help”

*All Oscar Bait provided by ‘Glenn Close’s Oscar Bait & Tackle Shop’- “You’re not close to hooking ‘em, unless you’re Glenn close”

Celia is a rich 1950s housewife living in a bubble. Her world bursts when her husband dies. Part of his estate is a small struggling segregated summer camp not too far from their South Carolina home where her children go each year. As the bills pile up she worries that she’ll have to fire her African American housemaid Minny. Minny has been working for them for almost 18 years. She helped raise the two children, Stuart and Charlotte. In passing Celia learns that Minny’s children, Aibileen and Henry, have nowhere to go for the summer.

Celia decides to open the first integrated summer camp in the area.

Celia doesn’t tell any of the other families about this. She gives them two different times to show up. On the first night she gets all the kids together and it’s a mess. There’s some fighting, racists comments, and some really adorable children saying sassy things.  Aibileen and Charlotte are a huge source of adorable comedy. Celia and Minny calm them down but tensions are extremely high.

As the days go by things start to calm. We see them starting to play together. Two kids really start to come to the forefront, Minny’s son Henry and a local white girl Elizabeth. Elizabeth is around the same age and there is clearly an attraction. They start to see each other. On the other hand Elizabeth’s younger brother has been one of the angriest kids who is still resistant to the change. He sees his sister with Henry and runs off.

While Minny is giving Celia this passionate speech about how wonderful she is (this is the clip that will play at the Oscar’s for the actress who plays Minny. She will win best supporting, but if she’s up for best actress she’ll lose to Meryl Streep) they start to hear a ruckus outside. Elizabeth’s father comes back furious and sets fire to the camp.  When all the parents come to pick up their children they see all them around the fire singing together, holding hands, and laughing. Their anger seems to subside even further as Celia gives them a passionate speech about everything she saw this summer.

Then all of the families work together to rebuild the camp. Celia is praised as a hero.

Cut to a shot of the summer camp today as tons of diverse kids run and play and we see a statue honoring Celia and her work.