BASED on the novel by Kathryn Stockett, this explores the touching relationship between two black maids in 1960s Mississippi. Screen-written and directed by Tate Taylor, it’s an embarrassment of acting riches, anchored by tour-de-force performances from Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer.

Oscar nominations must be forthcoming.

Every role is perfectly cast including Sissy Spacek in scene-stealing form as an outspoken southern matriarch with a faltering memory, who delights in her racist daughter’s humiliation.

The film marries strong and often wickedly funny performances with a sharp script and heartfelt emotion, evoking an era of social upheaval and racial tensions.

Nowhere is this more pronounced than a tense scene in which black bus passengers flee having learned from the driver about a racist killing on the streets, while white passengers appear more concerned with the inconvenience to their journey.

Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan (Emma Stone) returns home to Jackson after graduating from university with dreams of becoming a writer.

She is horrified to learn that her family’s beloved maid Constantine (Cicely Tyson) has quit and that one of the neighbours, Hilly Holbrook (Bryce Dallas Howard), is proposing that black workers should use separate bathrooms as “they carry different diseases to us”.

Determined to end the discrimination, Skeeter pitches a book to editor Elaine Stein (Mary Steenburgen), detailing the extraordinary lives of the maids who have spent countless years raising white children.

At first, the maids are reluctant to talk but Aibileen Clark (Viola Davis) – who narrates the film in soft, lilting tones –- eventually shares her thoughts.

Meanwhile, fiercely outspoken Minny Jackson (Octavia Spencer) loses her job as Hilly’s maid and finds work instead with social outcast Celia.

As Hilly continues with her crusade for segregation, Skeeter’s secret novel gathers momentum.

Davis and Spencer lead the cast magnificently, the unerring friendship between their characters providing a hook for every other performance.

The script is littered with delicious one-liners ebbing and flowing between the various storylines.

Nothing, however, will cleanse the memory of those turbulent times.

As the characters realise, to move forward, you invariably have to look back.

DRAMA

THE HELP

(2hr 26 mins)

Certificate: 12A

Starring: Emma Stone, Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jessica Chastain.

Director: Tate Taylor