The Help 

I must admit that I wouldn't have bothered seeing this film if not for seeing the trailer for it before Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy - but it intrigued me and it was well worth seeing as my birthday treat.

The film is a semi serious light comedy about the fate of black women working as maids in the Deep South of America during the Civil Rights era. As such, it could have been terribly heavy and serious, a veritable wet dream of a film for all the right on politically correct Guardian readers of this world - and because it wasn't, I have seen some quite bad write ups for the film. There's enough heavy weight seriousness in this area, thank heavens for some light relief. 

I have to say that I think the criticism is all terribly unfair, because the film tells a good, uplifting moral story in a light hearted and respectful way, with good doses of light humour - and what's more, it has a real story, plot development, is totally believable, has realistic characters that you quickly loved or hated accordingly, and better than anything else, made you really believe that you were in that time period and that location. It's funny and uplifting period drama of the highest order. 

So what that the governor of Mississippi was still in post at the end of the film - who cares? The characters had done their bit, they had made us laugh - and think - and we know that in any case, the world DID change. I loved it to bits. I thought that the light and humorous touch was infinitely better than any number of high minded serious lectures. The characters were so believable and in the end even the most stony faced objectors on all sides of the political spectrum could be left in no doubt that it was all worth the effort at the end.

There is a priceless scene where one of the maids bakes a particularly enticing "chocolate cake" for a particularly objectionable white society hostess - although not credible in the real world, it isn't actually made of chocolate, making the subsequent complications hilarious. 

I haven't seen many films this year, but this is one that I can highly recommend with no hesitation at all.