THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES
A Review
Ellen Thurston
ccSCOOP News
No pun intended, there was a real buzz in the air as an eager audience entered the Crandell Theatre on Thursday evening to see The Secret Life of Bees, a much-touted indie film being distributed by Fox Searchlight. Thursday was the first day of the Chatham Film Club’s film festival, FilmColumbia, and three films already down, they were ready to screen the fourth. As the 500-plus theatre filled to what looked like near capacity, friends greeted friends and exchanged views on films shown earlier in the day. Now in its ninth year, the festival attracts a loyal group of film buffs. No gum-smacking, popcorn-chomping, annoying cell-phone users here. This was a respectful, knowing audience, and I was happy to be among them.
|
|
Queen Latifah as August Boatwright, Sophie Okonedo as May Boatwright, Jennifer Hudson as Rosaleen, Alicia Keyes as June Boatwright, and Dakota Fanning as Lily Owens |
|
The Secret Life of Bees is the story of a fourteen-year-old white girl, Lily Owens, who, with her black nanny, Rosaleen, runs away from an abusive father to the nearby South Carolina town which she believes is somehow connected to her late mother. There she finds a new family—the three Boatwright sisters, who live in a big house painted “Pepto Bismol pink.” The Boatwright sisters raise bees and sell honey with a picture of a black Madonna on the label. It is this same label that Lily has kept in her treasure box since childhood and now uses to help trace the way to a place where she finally finds answers to the puzzle of her life.
The film is an adaptation of Sue Monk Kidd’s New York Times best-seller, written for the screen by Gina Prince-Bythewood, who also directs. The book was chosen by Good Morning America’s “Read This!” Book Club, and, if the book is anything like the film, I suspect it is being read by book clubs all over the country. It might be described as a “woman’s film”--a story with heart and a whole lot more. The film is set in South Carolina in 1964, and the civil rights movement permeates the atmosphere. Early on, Lyndon Johnson is seen on black-and-white TV signing the Civil Rights Act, and more tangible reminders crop up in several acts of violence along the way.
|
|
Before the film started, Sandi Knakal, the Film Club’s President, announced that the club would be buying the historic 1926 Crandell Theatre, thus entering the already crowded field of Columbia County capital campaigns. The stewardship of the theatre couldn’t be handed to a better group. The Film Club has quietly built the festival and its audience over the years and now seems ready to take on a project of this magnitude. See you at the movies.
|
|
Young Lily is played by Dakota Fanning, with appropriate confusion but a strong inner core that eventually helps her find resolution. She is full of questions that need answering, and she carries a heavy burden, having, at the age of four, accidentally killed her mother.
Rosaleen, who precipitates their escape when she runs afoul of the town’s most notorious racists while on her way to register to vote, is played by Jennifer Hudson of Dreamgirls fame.
The runaways readily find a place in the household of the three Boatwright sisters. June, played by vocalist Alicia Keyes, is the aloof and skeptical member of the trio. She is a college teacher who spends her time playing the cello and rebuffing the marriage proposals of her boyfriend Neil, played by Nate Parker. The childish and loving May, played by Sophie Okonedo (Hotel Rwanda), is emotionally damaged from the death of her twin sister, April, and retreats to her “wailing wall,” a stone wall built on the property to help her cope with the sorrows that haunt her. Hudson, Keyes, and Okonedo all give compelling performances, but it is Queen Latifah as August Boatwright, the eldest of the three sisters, who, as the warm, anchoring mother figure, gives the strongest performance of the film.
Lily’s father is played by Paul Bettany, and the love interest, Zachary Taylor, is played by Tristan Wilds, of the late lamented television series, The Wire—both good, solid performances.
Though I liked the film and found it engaging, my advice is to forgive the somewhat contrived plot and concentrate on the acting of the film’s accomplished cast. The plot takes many twists and turns that should not be revealed here. In the end, the film is about rescue and redemption and all kinds of love, but it seemed to take a long time to resolve itself. It is a film with several endings, as the loose ends are tied up one by one.
I give this film 3 scoops.
|
|
Queen Latifah and Dakota Fanning in The Secret Life of Bees |
|
|
