Tate Taylor gives actors room to make broadly written characters feel worth knowing. We value the warmth and humour, but The Help also exposes his weakness: an eagerness to reassure us when the people on screen deserve harder questions.
Fi1m perspective
In The Help (2011), Viola Davis’s Aibileen Clark speaks quietly enough to make us notice the effort of telling her story. Tate Taylor lets her take her time, and the growing trust between Aibileen and Emma Stone’s Skeeter Phelan gives the film its most convincing scenes. We were moved because Davis makes speaking to a willing listener feel risky. Taylor is worth watching for the space he gives his actors, though this sentimental drama too often hurries to reassure us.
His feature debut, Pretty Ugly People (2008), preceded the breakthrough of The Help, which he adapted from Kathryn Stockett’s novel. After that came the James Brown biopic Get On Up (2014), with its non-linear structure, and the thriller adaptation The Girl on the Train (2016). Ma (2019) took him into psychological horror with Octavia Spencer in the lead.
Spencer is a recurring collaborator, as is Allison Janney, and his working methods include improvisation and rehearsing at home. In The Help, Spencer’s Minny Jackson makes the shifts between comedy and hurt feel less laboured, her timing stopping the humour from becoming cosy. Jessica Chastain finds private vulnerability in the broadly written Celia Foote, another instance of an actor making Taylor’s approach work. The pleasure here comes from how much these actors find in parts whose outlines are easy to see.
Taylor is less willing to question the characters he likes. Skeeter receives so much approval that the women whose experiences she helps turn into a book are left with less room than they need. Bryce Dallas Howard’s Hilly Holbrook is emphatically drawn, and the film’s account of segregation makes cruelty seem too easily put right by decent people. See The Help for Davis and Spencer, with patience for the assurances about Skeeter’s goodness.
Biography
Tate Taylor is an American film director, screenwriter, producer and actor. Born in Jackson, Mississippi, he began his career as a production assistant and actor, appearing in films including Romy and Michele's High School Reunion (1997) and Winter's Bone (2010), and television series such as Charmed and Six Feet Under. He worked in New York City and Los Angeles for fifteen years before making his feature directorial debut with Pretty Ugly People (2008).
Taylor achieved mainstream success with The Help (2011), which he directed and for which he wrote the screenplay, adapting Kathryn Stockett's novel. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture and earned Taylor nominations for awards including the BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He has since directed Get On Up (2014), The Girl on the Train (2016), Ma (2019) and Ava (2020), and episodes of series including Grace and Frankie (2015) and Palm Royale (2024). He has collaborated frequently with actresses Allison Janney and Octavia Spencer.
