The Help (film)

The Help is a 2011 comedy-drama film about an aspiring author during the civil rights movement of the 1960's who decides to write a book detailing the African-American maids' points of view on the white families for which they work, and the hardships they go through on a daily basis.
 * Directed and written by Tate Taylor, based on Kathryn Stockett's novel of the same name.

Change begins with a whisper.

Aibileen Clark

 * [to Eugenia] Mrs. Leefolt should not be having babies. Write that down.
 * [repeated line, to Mae Mobley] You is kind. You is smart. You is important.

Charlotte Phelan

 * [to Eugenia] Love and hate are two horns on the same goat, Eugenia. And you need a goat.
 * [to Eugenia] Your eggs are dying. Would it kill you to go on a date?
 * [to Eugenia] Courage sometimes skips a generation. Thank you for bringing it back to our family.

Constantine Jefferson

 * [to Eugenia] Every day you're not dead in the ground, when you wake up in the morning, you're gonna have to make some decisions. Got to ask yourself this question: "Am I gonna believe all them bad things them fools say about me today?" You hear me today? "Am I gonna believe all them bad things them fools say about me today? You hear me today?" All right? As for your mama, she didn't pick her life. It picked her. But you, you're gonna do something big with yours. You wait and see.

Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan

 * [to Stuart] I'm sorry, but were you dropped on your head as an infant, or were you just born stupid?

Hilly Holbrook

 * [hysterical] It's Skeeter! She put it in the newsletter. I specifically said, "Drop old coats at my house," not commodes!!! Why would she do this to me?

Preacher Green

 * If you can love your enemy, you already have a victory.

Stuart Whitworth

 * [to Eugenia] Isn't that what all you girls from Ole Miss major in - professional husband hunting?

Minny Jackson

 * Frying chicken just tend to make you feel better about life.
 * [to Eugenia] You ain't got nothing left here but enemies in the Junior League. You done burned every bridge there is. And you ain't never gonna get another man in this town, everybody know that. So don't walk your white butt to New York, run it!
 * [to Hilly] Eat my shit.

Mrs. Walters

 * I may have trouble remembering my own name, or what country I live in, but there are two things I can't seem to forget: that my own daughter threw me into a nursing home, and that she ate Minny's shit.
 * [when Hilly realizes what was in Minny's pie and runs off, gagging] And you didn't have just ONE, you had TWO slices!!! [begins laughing hysterically, as Minny flees] RUN, MINNY, RUN!!! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Dialogue

 * Aibileen: I was born 1911, Chicksaw County, Piedmont Plantation.
 * Skeeter: And did you know as a girl growing up that one day you'd be a maid?
 * Clark: Yes ma'am, I did.
 * Skeeter: And you knew that because...
 * Aibileen: My mama was a maid. My grandmama was a house slave.
 * Skeeter: [whispering as she writes down] "house slave..." Did you ever dream of being something else? [Aibileen nods yes] What does it feel like to raise a white child when your own child's at home being looked after by somebody else?


 * Hilly: They carry different diseases than we do. That's why I've drafted the Home Health Sanitation Initiative.
 * Skeeter: The what?
 * Hilly: A disease-preventative bill that requires every white home to have a separate bathroom for the colored help. It's been endorsed by the White Citizen's Council.
 * Skeeter: Maybe we should just build you a bathroom outside, Hilly.
 * Hilly: You ought not to joke about the colored situation. I will do whatever it takes to protect our children.


 * Celia: They don't like me because of what they think I did.
 * Minny: They don't like you because they think you white trash.


 * [the terrible awful]
 * Hilly: So. Nobody wanted to hire a sass-mouthin', thievin' nigra- did they? Oh, pie's as good as always, Minny.
 * Minny: I'm glad you like it.
 * [Missus Walters comes into the room and heads for the bar to prepare a drink]
 * Hilly: If... I take you back, I'll have to cut your pay five dollars a week.
 * Minny: Take me back?
 * Hilly: What do you put in here that makes it taste so good?
 * Minny: That good vanilla from Mexico... [forces a smile] And... something else real special.
 * [Missus Walters grabs a plate and reaches for the pie.]
 * Minny: [quickly intervening] No, no no, Missus Walters. That Miss Hilly's special pie.
 * Hilly: Momma can have a piece. [Minny doesn't respond; Hilly huffs in annoyance and shoves the pie at her] Cut her one! Go get a plate!
 * [Minny fumes; she slaps a hand on the table and stares straight at Hilly]
 * Minny: Eat my shit.
 * Hilly: What'd you say?
 * Minny: I said eat... my... shit.
 * Hilly: Have you lost your mind?
 * Minny: No, ma'am. But you is about to. 'Cause you just did.
 * [a beat; Mrs. Walters starts laughing, realizing what Minny means, and Hilly gags and runs from the room]
 * Mrs. Walters: And you didn't just have one, you had two slices! [Minny hurries out of the house] Run, Minny, run!


 * Stuart: I've never met a woman that says exactly what she's thinking.
 * Skeeter: Well, I got plenty to say.


 * Hilly: [confronting Skeeter at her house about the book] I've contacted my lawyer, Hibbie Goodman! He's the best libel attorney in the state.  Oh missy, you are goin' to jail!
 * Skeeter: You can't prove anything.
 * Hilly: Oh I 100% know you wrote it, 'cause nobody else in town is as tacky as you!
 * Skeeter: You don't know anything, Hilly!
 * Hilly: [shoving Skeeter] Oh, I DON'T, do I?! You tell Aibileen that the next time she wants to write about my dear friend Elizabeth - uh huh, remember her, had you in her wedding? - let's just say, Aibileen ought to have been a little bit smarter before puttin' in about that L-shaped scratch in poor Elizabeth's dining table.  And that nigger Minny... do I have plans for her.
 * Skeeter: [calmly] Careful Hilly, that's Chapter Twelve. Don't give yourself away now.
 * Hilly: That was NOT ME!!! [storms over to the front door] I've come to tell your mother what a hippie you've become! She's going to be disgusted by you-!
 * Charlotte: [opens door before Hilly] Why, Hilly! Is everything okay, you two?
 * Hilly: Mrs. Phelan...
 * Charlotte: Hilly, you're a sweaty mess. Are you ill?
 * Hilly: No, ma'am...
 * Charlotte: [referring to the cold sore on Hilly's face] Darlin', oh, no husband wants to come home and see that.
 * Hilly: Oh... I didn't have time to get it fixed up.
 * Charlotte: You know, Hilly, if I didn't know any better, I'd say you've been eating too much pie.
 * Hilly: Mrs. Phelan, I...
 * Charlotte: In fact, I'm sure of it. Now you get your raggedy ass off my porch. Go on. Get off my property! NOW! Before we all get one of those disgusting things on our lips!
 * [Hilly, stunned, obeys and drives off]


 * Aibileen: [voice over] In just ten minutes, the only life I knew was done.
 * Mae Mobley: [calling after her through the window] A-a-a-aibee!
 * Aibileen: [voice over] God says we need to love our enemies. It hard to do. But it can start by telling the truth. No one had ever asked me what it feel like to be me. Once I told the truth about that, I felt free. And I got to thinking about all the people I know. And the things I seen and done. My boy Treelore always said we gonna have a writer in the family one day. I guess it's gonna be me.

Cast

 * Emma Stone as Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan
 * Lila Rogers as Young Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan
 * Viola Davis as Aibileen Clark
 * Bryce Dallas Howard as Hilly Holbrook
 * Octavia Spencer as Minny Jackson
 * Jessica Chastain as Celia Foote
 * Ahna O'Reilly as Elizabeth Leefolt
 * Allison Janney as Charlotte Phelan
 * Anna Camp as Jolene French
 * Chris Lowell as Stuart Whitworth
 * Cicely Tyson as Constantine Bates
 * Emma Henry/Eleanor Henry as Mae Mobley Leefolt
 * Mike Vogel as Johnny Foote
 * Sissy Spacek as Mrs. Walters
 * Brian Kerwin as Robert Phelan
 * Aunjanue Ellis as Yule May Davis
 * Joshua A. Downes as Mr. Blackly
 * Mary Steenburgen as Elaine Stein
 * Nelsan Ellis as Henry
 * David Oyelowo as Preacher Green
 * Dana Ivey as Grace Higginbotham
 * Ashley Johnson as Mary Beth Cadwell