Search - The Secret Life of Bees [Blu-ray] on Blu-ray

5 outstanding performances in this warm-hearted, life-affirm

RMurray847 | Albuquerque, NM United States | 10/19/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I read THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES by Sue Monk Kidd about two years ago. I enjoyed the book very much because it nicely evoked a sense of place (the rural south, with its humidity, ramshackle houses, lush flora and fauna) and it also created very vivid characters. It also suffered from a couple of unlikely coincidences and sometimes a bit too much sentimentality. It didn't trust the power it had built up to successfully tug at our heartstrings and evoke tears without just a little bit of extra obvious manipulation. I found it brisk, involving reading but a little short of classic status.

The film is almost exactly the same. While I don't remember tiny details of the book, and thus no doubt there are some "key" scenes missing, the film is very faithful to the plot of the book and its characters. It captures both the strengths and weaknesses of the book quite well. Frankly, if you like (or love) the book, then you should be quite content with how it has been translated. If you are unfamiliar with the book, you should have some of the same reactions to the film as I described about the book above.

The story is set in 1964. 14-year-old Lily Owens (Dakota Fanning) is a mature beyond her years girl in South Carolina. She carries a heavy burden. Ten years previously, while watching a fight between her mother and her abusive father, she accidentally fired a gun. The bullet killed her mother. Her mother, who was in the process of leaving her father and also, she fears, leaving her. This has left a hole in Lily, because she's torn between her fantasies of a loving mother that she has killed and a her fears that her mother was about to abandon her to her awful father. Lily's housekeeper Rosaleen (Jennifer Hudson) is somewhat friendly with the smart, inquisitive Lily (a girl who loves to write in her journal) and one day the two are walking somewhat companionably to town. Lily needs to stop by the store...Rosaleen is on her way to register to vote now that President Johnson has signed the Civil Rights Act. The redneck bigots in town figure out Rosaleen's intentions, and a confrontation ensures in which Rosaleen insults the men and they, in turn, attack her.

Lily seizes on the opportunity to rescue Rosaleen from the hospital, where she is recovering prior to her imprisonment. Lily takes Rosaleen to the town of Tiburon, SC...the only clue she has to where her mother might have come from. With little money and only a vague notion of her approach, the two runaways are taken in by a family of sisters who run a honey harvesting operation. It is amongst these women that Lily (and Rosaleen) learn some important lessons about life, learn to feel a sense of belonging, and ultimately, perhaps for Lily, learn about the fate of loved ones.

There are three Boatwright sisters: August (Queen Latifah) the eldest, who runs the business and dispenses worldly advice and tough love in that way only Queen Latifah can. There is June (Alicia Keys) the stern music-teacher who has put up a pretty heavy emotional armor. She's clearly enamored of her boyfriend Neil, a fellow teacher, but refuses to fully release herself to him. Finally, there is May (Sophie Okonedo), who is the most warm-hearted, kind person you'd care to meet, but she is also tormented by inner demons. I don't want to give away too much about May, because discovering the truth behind her afflictions is one of the joys of the story.

Suffice it to say that the film takes these characters and first shows how the civil rights movement affects them. Lily learns firsthand some harsh lessons about hatred. But it is far, far more interested in showing us how these women (and the men who buzz around them) grow and change...but also how strength takes on many different aspects, and how these different forms of strength can help others with their weaknesses and fears.

It's a brightly lit movie. It practically beams...much as Queen Latifah spends so much time beaming. It's full of metaphors (many dealing with bees, of course)...and sometimes it is just a bit heavy-handed. August Boatwright is sometimes just a little TOO wise and understanding. Lily is sometimes just a smidge to precocious. June is sometimes a little TOO hardened. And unfortunately, the ending is just a little too pat and convenient. In "real life," this story would have played out with more mess and more collateral damage.

Yet it's still so nice to see a movie that wants to embrace you with good feelings...realism be damned. Come enjoy these lively women, it says. Get swept up in their characters. That's what the book wanted to do, and that's what the film does.

This is accomplished mostly by virtue of some really, really nice performances. Queen Latifah, in many ways, fares the worst, because this is a character that was almost written to be played by her. We see her doing very little that is new for her...but she's so good at this character that we draw some comfort from the familiarity. She does have one devastating scene involving another of her sisters that shows she is ready to take another step as an actress. Alicia Keys looks lovely and gives a focused performance...more than anyone, her character seems to belong squarely in 1964...from her clothes to her attitude. Jennifer Hudson is fine as Rosaleen...it's no longer a curiosity that this former American Idol can act...she can and should. Her character somewhat falls by the wayside in the 2nd half of the film...but in our glimpses of her, we still see how she has grown and changed. Sophie Okonedo, who was so good in HOTEL RWANDA, is fabulous here. When she is on screen, she just bursts with life and energy and you simply can't take your eyes off of her. Whether her eyes are sparkling with loving mischief, or glazing over in dismay...she fully invests herself in the work.

Finally, I'm happy to say that Dakota Fanning is still reliably good. I would say she's going to make the transition from child star to teen star with little effort. She's the real deal as an actress.

THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES may not win major awards or become a much-beloved classic...but it IS an outstandingly evocative film that is so well acted. I'd recommend it for anyone willing to spend time with some really interesting women...AND I'd recommend it to audiences aged 13 and above. I think that young teen girls, in particular, might take a special liking to the film.
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