The Help (2011 Tate Taylor & scr)

In a film of exemplary performances, Octavia Spencer perhaps has the edge over the others. But who is Tate Taylor? I always look to the New York Times for my info:

Ms. Stockett’s novel was turned down by 60 literary agents before she found the one who sold her book, three weeks later; it quickly became a hit. By then she had already sold the movie rights to her childhood friend, Mr. Taylor, an actor turned fledgling director. He wrote the script in the apartment they shared as roommates in the East Village. Later he worked on the script in Los Angeles, where Octavia Spencer, who plays Minny, was his roommate; the film is a web of his relationships. Nonetheless studios were skittish about entrusting a neophyte with such sensitive material. (The director Chris Columbus, a producer of “The Help,” was eventually dispatched to be a full-time on-set baby sitter.)

Classy support too from Stephen Goldblatt and Thomas Newman - and you have to hand it to Mark Ricker (production design) and Curt Beech (art director) too. Lovely shiny cars you get in things like this -- never a dent on them...

Special mention to Aunjanue Ellis (as Yule Mae).

With Charlottesville still ringing in our ears it makes me angry... But thankfully, there's the chemistry between Spencer and Davis, Jessica Chastain (and her nice husband Mike Vogel), Alison Janney giving it good to Bryce Dallas Howard...

Someone give Emma Stone an Oscar --