Amaan Jhangimal
Thursday February 27th
Stung by a bee
When watching the Movie Secret Life Of Bees, it feels like reading the book all over again. The story takes place during the 1960s, a time where Jim Crow laws were abolished, the Civil Rights Movement had just been passed, but there was still discrimination. The movie, which was released in 2008 and directed by Gina Prince – Bythewood represents the book very well, the main character Lily Owens (Dakota Fanning) is a 14-year-old girl, who lives in a farm with her Father T-Ray (Paul Bettany) in a small town called Sylvan.
Lily decides to run away from her white father to go to a town called Tiburon to find out about her mother, Lily finds her way to a pink house where she meets 3 black women: August (Queen Latifah) , June(Alicia Keys) and May(Sophie Okonedo)Boatwright. She decides to live with them but lies to them about her situation. In the book it takes us longer to get to the part where she runs away, but in the movie with only 25 minutes watching we already see Lily running away.
The movie was nominated for 25 awards, some of them in the: People Choice Awards, Bet awards,black reel awards and many others. They successfully triumphed winning 10 of them including best actress, best director, best screenplay, outstanding motion picture, best performance by a young actor and many others; the director Gina Prince Bythewood won 3 of those awards. Watching the movie I noticed the fact of how good of a job Queen Latifah (August), Alicia Keys (June) and Sophie Okonedo (May) did playing the roles they were chosen for, in the book we recognize May as a sweet nice lady, June hot tempered and confused at times, and August being the Leader of the family, during the movie we see the exact same thing, the three actors play the characters exceptionally well and fit in to the role they were asked, maybe because Sue Monk Kidd helped write the play she could have given tips to the director when choosing the actors.
However in the movie there were still some flaws in the movie, in the book the pink house is described as pepto bismol color which is a very light pink. In the movie the color of the house just doesn’t match how I pictured it, when I read that part I pictured it as a bright house one that stands out from the rest but watching the movie it wasn’t what I pictured, It was the wrong color tone it was a little darker, even though it worked well for the movie its still something people who read the book might notice.
the theme of Secret life Of Bees is coming of age, when reading the book we see Lily coming of age and realizing her surroundings, each chapter there is changes with Lily, tough in the movie some of the parts we read about in the book aren’t there(The director must have chosen to do the more important parts) and it is noticable to people who read the book, and it works well for the director because we still se coming of age in the movie but it also doesn’t work as well because it would get criticised more.The Secret Life Of Bees is a wonderful story and movie that we would read and watch over and over, the movie keeps us entertained till the end and carries on the success from the book. The Bees are flying high this time.
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Secret Life Of Bees
4 stars, out of 5
snapshot: Lily Owens is a 14 year old girl who finds herself living in a town called Sylvan living with her father T-Ray.Throughout the story Lily is haunted by the memories of her mother.
what works: the movie features a great cast and stays true to the theme of the book
what doesn’t work: some of the details we see in the book are modified or not there.
amaanjhangimal 
Amaan, this review has so many things that I also noticed in the movie that the content that you are giving would be very similar if I wrote a book/movie review as well. I saw in your review the most of the things I also noticed while I looked at the movie, but I didn’t noticed some of them. One of them was about the color of the house, I looked back at the movie and the description said in the book was color of Pepto Bismol but in the movie it looks as a darker pink, so this is something that I didn’t noticed before. Very good review, you gave many details.
Hello Amaan, when reading your book review I founded very well written and I liked it. However I don’t quite have the same thoughts to it, meaning that I don’t quite like the director’s choice. What I really liked about your movie/book review is that you focus in one detail when criticizing the director, when you describe the color of the house. I really liked this because of the thought you’ve put into this and i didn’t even realize this. Also what I think you did very well is when you describe how the characters perfectly went with the movie. What I didn’t quite like was when you said that the “director must have chosen to do the more important parts”, because in my opinion the director missed a couple of important plot events. Overall I really liked it because you gave a lot of evidence and was very well written. Keep it up the work.