An average movie

Honestly, when I heard about this flick, I wasn’t really interested but since it got some decent reviews and some solid ratings (it was even in the IMDb top 250 for a while), I was eventually quite eager to check it out. Well, eventually, it reminded me of ‘The Blind Side’, another drama about a white woman helping a young black man which was a huge success at the box-office and, like this movie, was nominated for the Best Picture Academy award. Personally, I didn’t like much ‘The Blind Side’ and this movie didn’t really blow me away either. At least, it was dealing with an important part of American history. Basically, the main issue I have with this kind of movies, is that, unintentionally, it gives the idea that black folks are helpless until a white person comes to help them. This time, at least, even though Emma Stone was supposedly the main character, Octavia Spencer and Viola Spencer definitely stole the show. Indeed, as long as the movie was focusing on these black women, it was quite spellbinding to watch but it started to loose momentum everytime the white women had the main stage. For example, there were some half-baked plots about a romance involving Emma Stone, some murky rivalry involving Jessica Chastain (which was fine even though her character was poorly developed) and even though Bryce Dallas Howard was quite fearless a a villain, her character was borderline a caricature though. Anyway, to conclude, it was an important subject served by some strong performances but, at the end of the day, it remains a decent drama but not much more than that I’m afraid.

6/10