Like 2009’s ‘The Blind Side’, ‘The Help’ is a glossy-fied film featuring a white savior to a black character, or in this film’s case, several black characters. But just like ‘The Blind Side’ before it, this film tackles it’s subject matter so well, and features performances so powerfully emotional, that the small problems with it rarely matters at all. ‘The Help’ is one of the nicest surprises of the summer.

Taking place in early-1960’s Jackson, Mississippi, the film stars Emma Stone (‘Crazy, Stupid, Love‘ & ‘Easy A‘) as Skeeter Phelan, a recent University of Mississippi graduate. Skeeter aspires to be a writer, and her first job as a college graduate is writing for the local newspaper’s “homemaker help” column. In order to gain useful information to write about, Skeeter requests the help of a black maid named Aibileen Clark (Viola Davis).

Aibileen and the rest of the maids in Jackson, called the help, are paid poorly and mistreated by their white employers. But some, like Aibileen, love their jobs, or at least certain aspects of it. Aibileen raises the children of her employers, and she loves each and every one of them, and they love her back. That is, until the children grow up and turn into their parents.

Minny Jackson is Aibileen’s tough-spoken best friend and a fellow maid. She works for one of the most respected women in Jackson, Hilly Holbrook (Bryce Dallas Howard), the town’s social leader. Holbrook proposes a bill that’ll require every household to have a separate, outside bathroom solely for the help. After Minny is fired by Holbrook, she lands in the hands of the socially unaccepted Celia Foote (Jessica Chastain, from ‘The Tree of Life‘).

The majority of the characters in ‘The Help’ are like Miss Hilly Holbrook, purposely going against their African-American workers. They’re the “bad guys,” the racists. However, there are white characters, the non-racists, the “good guys.” Skeeter and Celia are some of these so-called good guys. Skeeter’s the way she is because she grew up with her own maid, Constantine (Cicely Tyson), who loved and raised her. When she comes home from college, there’s a subplot involving the mystery surrounding Constantine’s disappearance. Celia is a good-hearted soul, and a naive one at that. She’s socially unacceptable because Hilly Holbrook doesn’t approve of her, thus the rest of Jackson’s young women don’t either.

As Minny and Celia’s relationship grows deeper, so does Skeeter and Aibileen’s. Eventually, Skeeter comes up with the daring idea to write a book told from the perspective of the help. It’s a great risk for any maid to talk about their experiences working in Jackson, Mississippi, so it’s brave of Aibileen and Minny to take part in the writing of the book.

There’s no hiding that ‘The Help’ glosses over its serious subject matter. There have been other films that have tackled racism far more effectively, and far more realistically than this film has. After all, it was 1960’s Jackson, Mississippi. But ‘The Help’ more than makes up for its simplified racial themes with a great cast and fine performances, most notably by Viola Davis in her Oscar-worthy role as Aibileen Clark. Emma Stone is likable as always, and though she has first billing in the film, ‘The Help’ really belongs to Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer. Bryce Dallas Howard (‘The Twilight Saga: Eclipse’) is perfectly despicable as primary antagonist, Hilly Holbrook, and Jessica Chastain is extremely adorable and lovable as the naive goofball, Celia Foote.

Though ‘The Help’ splits its characters into “racist bad guys” and “non-racist good guys,” thankfully it doesn’t fall too far into this simplistic division, with the inclusion of some white characters on the bad side who show signs of being uncomfortable with the mistreatment of the black characters, but who are too afraid of separating from the social norm to change. This at least adds some depth and grey areas to a film that can sometimes be too black and white.

Nevertheless, ‘The Help’ is an enjoyable film, and a surprisingly good one. It’s definitely an easy and light coverage of a serious topic, but it still offers strong emotional values and heart-breaking moments.