The Secret Life of Bees

This film is so likable, so watchable, so reach-in-your-pocket-for-a-Kleenex that you will absolutely hate me for calling it sentimental. So who cares? In these hard, angry times, maybe we need a dash of sentimentality.

The Secret Life of Bees is first the coming-of-age odyssey of 14-year-old Lily Owens (Dakota Fanning) and second, a portrait of the still-segregated South at the time of the Civil Rights movement.

Lily has lost her mother in a terrible accident for which she might have been responsible.  Her life with a cold and abusive father, a surprising role for British Paul Bettany, is no longer tolerable. Her only companion is black housekeeper Rosaleen (Jennifer Hudson), and when Rosaleen tries to register to vote and is badly beaten and jailed, Lily packs up, springs her friend from the prison hospital, and they begin their journey — Lily’s quest to be reunited, in some way, with her lost mother.

Magical signs and portents guide Lily, when bees suddenly swarm in her room. All she has of her mother is a marked map and a label from a jar of honey. The two waifs make it to the town of Tiburon, South Carolina, but there is no “room at the inn” for a white girl and a black girl in this segregated town. When Lily passes a local store and sees the familiar label on a jar of honey, they are directed to the honey-makers — a bright pink house where the bee-keepers live. There are three Boatwright sisters: August, the matriarch (Queen Latifah); June (Alicia Keys), who plays the cello; and the damaged May (Sophie Okonedo of Hotel Rwanda), whose life was altered by the death of her twin sister.

Lily knocks at this door and asks sanctuary for the night. The kind and compassionate August takes them in against Lily’s advice. But who else will take them? says August.  In this warm family circle,  Lily finds love and acceptance, as August teaches her to manage bees with a kind hand and a heart without fear. The “musical” sister, June, staunchly fights for Civil Rights and, through June’s example,  Rosalee finds her courage as a strong, entitled, black woman.

Worth noting is the scene where the family and friends gather for a Sunday testimony revolving about a statue of the Black Madonna, a symbol of the strength and courage of black women. The name Boatwright is symbolic, since this statue was probably once at the prow of a slave ship which sank, and this carved symbol floated to their shore. Also notable is Paul Bethany’s final scene, where he has the courage to make an admission to his daughter…important to her happiness while breaking his own heart.

As to the sentimentality: There is such “magical coincidence” in the meeting of Lily and August who was actually…don’t make me be a spoiler and say it. See it and find out. Just a bit too coincidental for me. But signs and portents are central to the story: The bees led her here, the label found August…  And although the theme of segregation is the other half of the story, it is downplayed and shown in a very soft light. Zach (Tristan Wilds) is attacked for taking white Lily to the movies, but a sympathetic white neighbor saves him and he returns with nothing but a little bump on the forehead. So the theme of segregation is “alluded to” but never hit bluntly and realistically on the head, just as August’s revelation of her own connection with Lily (which has racial overtones) is stated briefly but never really explored.

This is a soft film. Pain, unhappiness, and injustice are visible at the edges but played down and subordinate to the story of an unhappy girl in search for love and family.  This will be a popular film and an oasis in this season of violence, chaos, mordant satire, and sci-fi scary stuff. And don’t (like me) be too critical. It’s two good weepy hours, and you come out feeling uplifted.

…Oh, one other shocking observation: These three great voices and nobody sings! To see Jennifer Hudson with her dumpy body and straggly hair and to remember her voice in Dream Girls, and to think of Queen Latifah belting out her “Momma” song in Chicago…well, can’t have everything.