“The Help” should do well at the box office, with its ready-made audience: Millions bought the Kathryn Stockett novel on which the movie is based. It boasts a talented ensemble cast of actresses who completely transform themselves into early 1960s white socialites and their African-American maids. There’s a luscious attention to paid to period detail, with brightly colored frocks and subdued homes. Yet the film itself is rather black and white, keeping it from being an unalloyed artistic success. Emma Stone, the very appealing redhead (here showing off blonde hair), plays Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan, who sets the plot in motion. The privileged white daughter returns to Jackson, Miss., with a degree from Ole Miss and a head full of ambition. She sees her chance to write her book and right some wrongs at the same time when she notices how poorly her fellow Jacksonians treat their help.
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