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I'm Stephen Metcalf, and this is the Slate Culture Gab Fest, Yammer and Yob's edition.

It's Wednesday, August 17, 2011.

On today's program, the new film The Help with Boston Globe film critic Wesley Morris,

not only the what, but the how of summer summer reading and the UK riots with June Thomas.

Joining me today are Slate's deputy editor, Julia Turner. Hello, Julia. Hi, Steve. How you doing?

I'm great. You seem really good. I'm just feeling caffeinated and chipper. Yeah. Oh, God. All right, Dana, how are you doing?

Dana Stevens? I'm fine. Slate's film critic, Dana Stevens. Yes, I am All right. Dana, how are you doing? I'm... Dana Stevens.

I'm fine, thank you. Slate's film critic, Dana Stevens. Yes, I am. Lovely to see you. You too. This is going great so far. Wesley, we've got to bring you in to rescue us. We're joined by Wesley Morris, the film critic of the Boston Globe. Wesley, welcome to the program. So great to have you on. We're all huge fans of your work.

Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be program. So great to have you on. We're all huge fans of your work.

Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. Hi, everybody. All right. Well, let's dig right in. I'm going to quote some of the juicy bits from your review of the movie The Help. And we should actually note here, we are going to end up spoiling a little bit of the film in our discussion, not without too much detail. but Jesse's going to pipe in and let you know where to skip to still in the segment, but after the spoily parts of it.

All right.

So if you don't mind a little spoilage, then just skip ahead to eight minutes and 15 seconds into

the podcast.

If you don't want to hear anything else about the help, skip ahead to 18 minutes and 45 seconds into the podcast.

I should say quickly, the Help is a new film.

It's adapted from a very popular bestseller by a woman named Catherine Stockett.

It's adapted to the screen by her childhood friend, a guy named Tate Taylor, who, Dana, as I understand it, has very little resume aside, a film resume, aside from being close to Catherine Stockett. Yeah, I think essentially, I mean, from what I've read about it, it was sort of a power game where Catherine Stockett held out and said, unless my friend can direct this movie, it's not getting made. Yeah. Yeah, and we should say it tells the story for people who haven't seen or haven't experienced. The book, it tells a story of a young white woman in the early 60s in the Deep South and Mississippi who decides to write a book about the, essentially, the inner lives of the black maids who serve the community.

These women raise white children. We love them and they love us, but they can't even use the toilets in our houses.

...