The Help: Press reviews

' hugely enjoyable'

' heartfelt, hilarious and the cast is a dream-team topped by Viola Davis. What's more, it hinges on a gross-out scene that wouldn't look out of place in a John Waters film'

'Ms. Davis helps lift up several weaker performances and invests this cautious, at times bizarrely buoyant, movie with the gravity it frequently seems to want to shrug off.'

'The movie is facile, not a little patronising, and it ends up as crude and sentimental.'

'A simplistic portrayal of historic race relations boosted by terrific performances from some of the best actresses working in Hollywood today'

'The Help is a warm bath, not a hard confrontation.'

'Terrifically performed, with enough humour and heart that you'll ignore its flaws.'

'Onscreen, Spencer and Viola Davis, both great actresses, have given Stockett's words the shape, the rhythm, and the pitch of their own temperaments. They sound right.'

'Viewed as an airbrushed, Dettol-heavy fairytale it's rousingly effective. '

'an old-fashioned Hollywood weepie with a sentimental undertow'

'A faithful, heart-warming adaptation that will satisfy fans of the book, divert the uninitiated and tickle the Academy's fancy.'

'suffers from an obsequious lust for stereotypes'

'a too simplified, sanitised study of the civil rights movement'