If you haven’t seen it hurry and get your ticket!Queen Latifah, Dakota Fanning, Jennifer Hudson, and Alicia Keys represented with essence, strength and beauty in their newly released movie “The Secret Life of the Bees”. Gina Prince-Bythewood directed the movie.
“Bees” is based on Sue Monk Kidd’s 2002 novel, a hugely popular exploration of family, love and the brutal politics of race in 1964 South Carolina. The story is not a sad story, but a story that displays moral and ethic views that portray strength in knowledge.
Dakota Fanning (looking startlingly and suddenly like a teenager) plays Lily, a lonely budding writer whose life is defined by two realities: She’s pretty sure she killed her own mother, who may or may not have loved her. And her father (Paul Bettany, doing a very convincing impression of an angry, devastated man who has lost everything, including at least some of his mind) wants nothing to do with her.
Residing in a small town in South Carolina, Lily and Rosaleen, her one-time nanny (Jennifer Hudson), leave town suddenly where Lily suspects she may find clues to her mother’s mysterious life. Instead, she finds a giant pink house, a honey company and three sisters. It is in this house the ladies reside for a while and gain insight, knowledge, and keys that are essential for their growth. They also endure pain and heartache that defiantly reaches out to the audiences in ways you thought “a movie” couldn’t.
When the real suffering starts, you may find yourself thinking things can’t get much worse for these people. (You’d be wrong: In 1960s South Carolina, black women were basically guaranteed more than their share of suffering.) And by the time the final on-screen tear has been wiped away, and the last hanky hung on the line to dry, all but the most forgiving audience members will feel cruelly manipulated.
But what you won’t feel is especially edified. This movie proves that there are two kinds of people: good people and bad people. Beekeepers and racists. Righteous white lawyers and small-minded white secretaries. You get the idea. All people whether they are old or young are not good people.
We as moviegoers and as people in general must constantly renew our minds. I refer to Revelations 12:2, so that we may not think the same way we thought yesterday. I use that scripture in reference to the integrity and depiction of people in the “Bee’s” movie, “If we never change how we think and continue to remain racist or uncivilized due to the color of others’ skin we will be as Webster defines it insane,” thinking the same way and expecting different results”!