The Secret Life of Bees

After turning 14 I decided that I was entirely too grown-up to watch any movie that included coming-of-age themes, magical wonderlands, or a message about the true value of love. Persuaded by superstars such as Alicia Keys, Jennifer Hudson, and Queen Latifah, however, I finally decided to break my own rule and see “The Secret Life of Bees,” the new movie based on the 2002 novel of the same name by Sue Monk Kidd. Fortunately, the characters in the movie subtly and skillfully explore these juvenile themes but without the unnecessary sappiness and sentimentality that usually plague films of this kind. After watching the movie, I felt a sense of relief and hope comparable to that which is felt after watching a particularly refreshing episode of Oprah—but not much more.

“The Secret Life of Bees” tells the story of Lily Owens, played by Dakota Fanning, who in the first scene of the movie frightfully awakens from a nightmare of her mother’s death. We are introduced to the ensuing mystery of who her mother really was. Lily lives with her widowed father (Paul Bettany) and black housekeeper, Rosaleen (Jennifer Hudson), in a small, dry, dusty town in South Carolina during the height of the Civil Rights movement.

The relationship between the three is all too familiar: Lily’s father is abusive and distant while Rosaleen acts as a surrogate parent. After a violent clash with several townspeople over new rights granted by the Civil Rights Act, Rosaleen ends up in the hospital. Lily, who is in desperate need of escape from her father, hatches a scheme for the pair to run away.

The movie begins with depressing, colorless shots of Fanning alone in a peach stand on the side of the road or in the gray house where her father sneers angrily in her direction. However, the scenes quickly move to the vibrant town of Tiburon, S.C., where the Boatwright sisters live their “secret lives” apart from the town’s racist whites. Steered to the sisters’ flamingo-pink house by a card her mother left behind, Lily and Rosaleen end up on the porch of the infamous beekeeping Boatwrights, played by Latifah, Keys, and Sophie Okonedo.

The three sisters are independent, intelligent, caring black women who live a fairy-tale existence; they own their own house, their own business, and their own church. While Lily and Rosaleen work for the family, they fall in love with the quirky sisters and ultimately gain a sense of belonging. The cliché story of Lily’s search to know her mother becomes secondary to the unique habits of the Boatwright sisters. The romantic relationships that blossom for both June Boatwright (Keys) and Lily are adorable diversions from the coming-of-age plot.

Although there are scenes that deal with the racially turbulent times, the movie doesn’t explore the politics of racism further. Like any good movie worthy of an appearance on Oprah, the strength of “Bees” lies in the diversity and development of the characters and their relationships. Many of the sweetest moments happen when the vulnerable Lily tries to fill the void her dead mother and unloving father left in her life.

“The Secret Life of Bees” deserves the most applause for the fact that director Gina Prince-Bythewood doesn’t overuse the cast. With such recognizable singer-cum-actresses as Latifah, Hudson, and Keys, I nervously awaited group sing-a-longs (à la Beyoncé in “Dreamgirls”). Thankfully, the audience is never put through this torture. Nor does the movie rely too heavily on Fanning and Bettany, two experienced actors, to convey emotional weight.

However, the familiarity of the content and the predictability of the outcome take away from the story’s impact. I got the feeling that I had seen the same characters in “The Color Purple” and “The Man in the Moon”—however, those are two of my favorite movies, so maybe that’s not a bad thing. Also, you get the sense that some relationships, such as that between Rosaleen and Lily, could have been explored further.

Although the movie reads as a watered-down version of “The Color Purple,” you can excuse “The Simple Life of Bees” for its lack of complexity and instead sit back and appreciate the simplicity of the lessons, the vibrant characters, and the pure and sweet story that nowadays seems like such an anomaly.