There are many differences between the book, The Help, and the movie, “The Help”. Although the director did manage to keep some of the plots the same, there are still not as many similarities as differences in the book and movie.
To start off, the director did keep most of the characters looks and personalities the same in the movie as in the book. Some differences were that in the book Skeeter is big and tall, but the movie has her slender and average height, if not shorter. Hilly is portrayed in the book as a dark-haired woman, whose weight increased throughout the timeline in the book, but in the movie, she is thin and stays that way through the whole movie.
Also in the movie, Skeeter’s maid, Constantine, is shorter than Skeeter, although in the book it says that Constantine is the only person who made Skeeter feel small, or short. Lastly, Constantine’s daughter in the movie, Rachel, is black, but in the book, it says she may have a white daughter or even no daughter at all. In the book, Skeeter’s family finds out Constantine is dead when they send a check to her and her daughter sends it back saying she has passed. In the movie, Skeeter’s mother says that her brother went to go bring Constantine back, but he finds out she has passed away.
In the movie, Skeeter’s mother is sick with cancer from the moment she first appears. In the book, she doesn’t find out she has cancer until later in the novel. The way it happens in the movie, Skeeter applies for a job in the paper and gets it by showing her rejection letter saying she’s good, but needs improvement. She is also offered $8 pay and gladly takes it. In the book, Skeeter applies for the job and just gets it, and is so in shock that she actually got the job that when she is offered $8 her employer thinks she is so in shock from the low pay he raises it to $10. Also later in the novel, it says that Skeeter takes a job in New York and gives the Miss Myrna article in the paper job to Aibileen. This does not happen in the movie.
In the book, Aibileen tells Skeeter how her son wanted to write a book about being a black man working for a white man. He got the idea from a book called “The Invisible Man”, and Aibileen decides to help Skeeter with it because of Miss Hilly. Unlike the book, Skeeter comes up with the idea of writing what it’s like to be a black maid working for a white family herself, and Aibileen chooses to help her with it because of God and Miss Hilly. Near the end of the book, Aibileen gives Skeeter a copy of “The Help” signed by everyone that helped out. In the movie, the church (filled with everyone who helped the book) gives Aibileen a signed book.
Celia has very different events in the book and in the movie. For example, in the book, Celia hires Minny without telling her husband Johnny. He soon finds out about Minny by the improvement of the meals. In the movie, Celia tells Johnny about Minny. Later in the book, Minny thinks Celia has a drinking problem because she is going upstairs and hiding in her room all the time with a drink. She then finds out that Celia is trying to avoid a miscarriage and it is a drink that she bought to help avoid them, but there is no mention of this in the movie. The book states that there is a naked man that tries to break into Celia’s house, but Celia and Minny scare him off. This is not shown or talked about in the movie. When Celia gets drunk in the book, she accidentally rips a part of Miss Hilly’s dress, and Hilly asks for $200, saying it’s going to help children in Africa, but in the movie, there is no request for money, a check just shows up at Hilly’s.
Hilly sets Skeeter up on a date with a guy named Stuart. In the book, after they have dinner they go to Hilly’s where Stuart gets drunk and tells Skeeter he isn’t ready to date. The movie shows Stuart already being drunk and Skeeter storms out of the restaurant, and Stuart later apologizes and says he isn’t ready to date. The two end up going out, in both the movie and the book, but the book has a much more dramatic break-up scene (several scenes actually) while the movie just has one short simple break up scene.
The book and the movie, “The Help” have more differences than similarities. Although the book is good, the movie doesn’t do as much of a good job of showing the character’s personalities and relationships with each other.
