The Secret Life of Bees

The Secret Lives of Bees (Dakota Fanning, Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson, Alicia Keys, Sophie Okonedo, Paul Bettany) — You would think that a movie with Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys would feature some singing but it doesn’t … or not very much.  Instead, we get a serious film set in the South in 1964 amidst the racial strife still present despite the then-recent passage of the Civil Rights Act.  At its heart, this is a family drama.  The talented kid star Dakota Fanning plays Lily, one of those more-mature-than-her-age, enlightened young girls being raised by her angry, violent father (Paul Bettany) along with the help of a black nanny, Rosaleen, played by Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson.  When Rosaleen is beaten by rednecks and Lily is told by dad that her mother left and didn’t want either one of them, the two run off.  Lily leads them to a town in South Carolina that was inscribed on the back of a photograph left by her mother that depicted a black Mary holding Jesus.  The odd couple ends up at the home of Miss August Boatwright (Queen Latifah in a more dialed-down performance than usual) and her sisters, May (played by Sophie Okonedo, an Oscar nominee for Hotel Ruanda) and June (played by Alicia Keys).  They raise bees and make honey in bottles depicting a black Mary holding a baby Jesus.  Based on a book by the same name, The Secret Lives of Bees then meanders into predictable territory.  But the storyline has enough subplots to keep the mostly female audience guessing.  There are surprising performances here, not by the always reliable Latifah or Fanning but by a subdued Hudson and a repressed Keys.  The best performance may actually belong to Bettany, another Brit playing an American (a pet peeve I will have to get over someday), whose character is perpetually angry and abusive, yet strangely committed to his daughter.  This is not a great movie.  It also wasn’t as weepy as the reviews I had read.  So it is neither a typical chick flick nor an angry race movie.  It’s a period piece layered with familial love and full of heart.