When trying to adapt the book The Help I could see how it would be difficult. A challenge a filmmaker may have would be showing how hot it always is in Mississippi. Throughout the book the characters are always talking about how bad the heat it, and there are always comments made about how the heat is affecting so many things. Also another challenge they may have would be casting someone to play Miss Skeeter. I think this may be difficult because her physical appearance is described so much in the book. She is described as too tall, too thin, and ugly. Her hair is frizzy and she has never dated anyone. I think this may be a hard character to capture and it may be hard to cast someone as Miss Skeeter.
One scene I believe is essential to keep in the movie would be when Minny has to go and work for Miss Celia. I think this is essential because up to this point you are always wondering why Miss Hilly and Miss Elizabeth and all of the other ladies never include Miss Celia in any of the things they do because they hate her. Well you find out that Miss Celia married Miss Hilly’s ex-boyfriend from college. But Miss Celia doesn’t realize that is why she hates her and she is just desperate to find friends. Another scene I feel is essential would be when Miss Skeeter introduces us to Constantine. Constantine was Miss Skeeter’s family’s maid for 29 years. She raised Miss Skeeter, and it shows you how much Miss Skeeter looks up to her and how much she loved her. But she comes back from college and finds out that her mother fired her. But she hasn’t found out why yet and she still has not come in contact with her. The last scene I think would be essential to keep in the movie would be when Miss Hilly finds Miss Skeeter’s satchel with all of her notes in it about the Jim Crow laws and with Miss Hilly’s newsletter. Miss Skeeter wrote mean things about Hilly’s newsletter and she finds it in the satchel. Hilly doesn’t tell Skeeter, and you can tell Hilly starts thinking of a way she is going to deal with this so that Sketter knows she should never do something like that again.
One scene I believe should be deleted would be when one night Skeeter comes home and her brother is there with his new girlfriend. They talk for a minute but it never comes up again in the book and it has to relevance to the story. The only thing that happens is that Skeeter’s mother thinks that her brother and his girlfriend will get married one day. Another scene I think should be deleted would be when Skeeter is driving to her date and she has to take the truck with a large tractor attached to it. In the book they make sort of a big deal about it and about her having to drive a car with a tractor attached to it but really it has nothing to do with what happens on the date or anything that happens for the rest of the night.
