Jayne Marshall says: "An adaptation of the book of the same name - a friend made me read the book, which I mostly hated, not least because all I could think whilst reading it was, 'written-in-order-to-sell-film-rights' over and over.  Not long after I finished the book, the film version was announced.  The film is concerned with the story of Skeeter, an aspiring writer and privileged white woman living in 1960s Mississippi and trying to overcome the stifling social constraints still very much in force in America’s south at the time.  She hits on the idea of writing about 'the help', black women in domestic servitude in her and all of her peers' homes.  Although disturbing to be reminded of the civil right abuses suffered by African Americans of the time, which the film does touch on, it watches more like a civil rights fantasy - reductive and glossy."