I liked The Help because it wasn't a comedy, and that's exactly what my wife thought it would be -- something "light and fun." She only goes to movies that are "light and fun."

But The Help while having some moments that are light and fun and might give you a good laugh is actually a serious study of a dark period of American life -- the late 1950s and early 1960s when "separate but equal" was the law in the South, and civil rights were few for minorities, and the civil rights movement often left its leaders dead from snipers, beatings and lynching.

How quickly we forget in the United States how things used to be.

It is an outstanding film and even if you think its a chick flick it's not.