Kathryn Stockett’s The Help coming to the big screen

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Variety reports that crowd-pleasing producer Chris Columbus is fast-tracking a film adaptation of The Help, a bestselling novel by first-time Atlanta author Kathryn Stockett.

Interesting back story: the director, Tate Taylor, grew up with Stockett in Jackson, Mississippi. In fact, one of the characters was inspired by his mother. He optioned the book before it was even published.

Last March, our book reviewer, Teresa Weaver, had some reservations about the book. Here’s a short excerpt from her review then:

“The plot is engaging and there are many nice moments of humor and irony. But the narration, shared by three women, is too often clumsy, and the Deep South dialect grows tiresome almost immediately.”

Perhaps the narrative will come across more smoothly on the big screen–though, knowing Hollywood and its penchant for forcing non-native actors to try their hand at Southern accents, I don’t have much hope for the dialect issue.

Have you read The Help? What did you think?

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