THE HELP is one of the most thought-provoking movies in a long time. It's based on a best-selling book that I'm ashamed to admit I haven't read all the way through. That put me at a big disadvantage in the theater. I went to an afternoon show with my wife (who had read it), and theater was packed with women's reading groups that had loved the book. The consensus: The long film was faithful to the book, but only to a point. Much was left out. That's easy to believe, because the film was packed with fascinating characters, each of whom seemed insufficiently fleshed out. I've peeked a bit at the book, just to confirm some of my suspicions about the movie. But, as usual, I'm basically letting the movie stand on its own. In terms of visual detail, this has to one of the best movies ever made. You're convinced that this is exactly what Jackson, Mississippi was like in 1963. The middle-class parts of that city were pretty much like the rest of the country, except for three significant details. Every middle-class family had African American “help,” a maid who who was lot more than a mere maid. So the white women, like their more aristocratic ancestors, didn't have to work. And there was extreme racial segregation, segregation that was, you might say, still in the process of being perfected.The middle-class white women are so horrible you start to feel sorry for them. Their lives are pointless. Their aesthetically unimpresive houses are run and their children are raised by “the help.” Their unerotic, boring husbands have little interest in them. They don't work themselves and have no ambition to work. So their lives are consumed by obsession with trivial pursuits—bridge clubs and stuff like that—and petty distinctions. Theirs is not aristocratic leisure, and their lives are creepily devoid of personal love and proper pride. The film has the appropriate moments when nature