| Director | Tate Taylor |
|---|---|
| Budget | $25 million |
| Box office | $221.8 million |
In 1963, Aibileen Clark is an African-American domestic worker in Jackson, Mississippi, working for socialite Elizabeth Leefolt. She raises Elizabeth's daughter, two-year-old Mae Mobley, who is emotionally neglected due to postpartum depression Elizabeth suffered following Mae's birth. Aibileen's best friend, Minny Jackson, works for an elderly Mrs. Walters and her manipulative daughter Hillary "Hilly" Holbrook, who leads the Jackson chapter of the Junior League.
Elizabeth and Hilly's friend Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan is an unmarried aspiring writer and recent graduate of Ole Miss, who has been rejected by Elaine Stein, an editor at Harper and Row in New York City. Securing a local job writing a housekeeping column, she witnesses the city's systemic racism and the demeaning mistreatment of maids.
Hilly insists on installing separate bathrooms for the maids to use. Skeeter's mother Charlotte tells her that the family maid Constantine quit, but Skeeter does not believe her. She decides to write a book of interviews with the maids to expose their experiences. Minny is fired by Hilly for using an indoor bathroom during a tornado. Hilly vindictively renders Minny unemployable by spreading the lie that she stole from her, forcing her teenaged daughter to quit school to work.
Celia Rae Foote, a pregnant housewife ostracized by the society ladies, seeks a maid for her massive house in Madison. She hires Minny without telling her husband Johnny, Hilly's former love interest. Celia suffers a miscarriage, then reveals that she had a shotgun wedding and had previously miscarried that time as well. Each time she miscarries, Celia plants a rose bush in the garden. She also treats the black eye Minny's husband has given her.
After going to a dynamic sermon, Aibileen and Minny let Skeeter interview them. Elaine Stein tells Skeeter she needs many more maids' stories for the book, but fear of retribution prevents others from coming forward. Aibileen tells Skeeter about her only son's on-the-job death due to his negligent foreman. Skeeter delays a piece in the Junior League newsletter on the "separate but equal" bathrooms for Hilly, instead submitting an embarrassing misprint, leading to 'commodes' being deposited in Hilly's front garden. Hilly refuses to advance money to her new maid, Yule May Davis, who needs $75 to send her twins to Tougaloo College. When Yule May pawns a lost ring that was under a sofa, she is violently arrested after Hilly reports her. This incident and Medgar Evers' assassination inspire more maids to share their stories.
As Skeeter, Aibileen, and Minny fear for the maids' anonymity, Minny reveals the "terrible awful" as a form of insurance. After her termination, Minny brought Hilly her famous chocolate pie, but explainsafter Hilly had finished two slicesthat she had baked her own excrement into it. Hilly sends her mother to a nursing home for laughing about it.
Skeeter finally confronts Charlotte about Constantine's departure. Charlotte confesses that during a Daughters of America luncheon at her home, she fired Constantine because her daughter Rachel, arriving earlier than expected, refused to enter the house through the kitchen. Rachel subsequently moved her heartbroken mother to Chicago, where she died.
Skeeter's book, The Help, is published anonymously and read widely by the black and white communities of Jackson. Skeeter shares the proceeds with the maids. Her boyfriend Stuart breaks up with her after learning she is the book's author.
Minny tells Celia about the "terrible awful." Celia then subtly reveals this to Hilly, calling her "Two Slice Hilly". Panicked, Hilly threatens to sue Skeeter for libel but backs down when she realizes she would have to publicly admit to the pie story. Charlotte intervenes, ordering Hilly off the property, then mother and daughter reconcile. Johnny tells Minny that he knows she has been working at their house and promises her permanent job security so she and her children can leave her abusive husband. Aibileen's congregation honors her for her leadership in the publication. Minny and Aibileen convince Skeeter to take a New York City job offer.
In revenge, Hilly pressures Elizabeth to fire Aibileen, claiming that she has stolen silverware. She defends herself, Hilly storms out in tears, and Elizabeth fires Aibileen. As Aibileen bids farewell to Mae, she begs Elizabeth to love her daughter. As she is leaving, she decides to quit domestic work to become a writer.