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As a realistic portrayal of life in rural South Carolina in 1964, "The Secret Life of Bees" is dreaming. As a parable of hope and love, it is enchanting. Should it have been painful, or a parable? Parable, I think, so it will please those who loved the novel by Sue Monk Kidd . One critic has described it as sappy, syrupy, sentimental and sermonizing, and those are only the S's. The same reviewer admitted that it is also "wholesome and heartwarming," although you will never see "wholesome" used in a movie ad.

I go with heartwarming. There is such a thing as feeling superior to your emotions, but I trust mine. If I sense the beginnings of a teardrop in my eye during a movie, that is evidence more tangible than all the mighty weight of Film Theory. "The immediate experience," one of the wisest of critics called it. That's what you have to acknowledge. I watched the movie, abandoned history and plausibility, and just plain fell for it. If it had been a bad movie, it would have been ripe for vivisection. But it is not a bad movie.

Above all, it contains characters I care for, played by actors I admire. If a script doesn't get in the way, a movie like that just about has to work. Queen Latifah , who combines conviction, humor and a certain majesty, plays August Boatwright, a woman about as plausible as a fairy godmother, and so what? She lives outside town in a house painted the color of the Easter Bunny and gathers honey for a living. Famous honey, from happy bees. Living with her are her two sisters: June ( Alicia Keys ), a classical cellist and civil rights activist, and May ( Sophie Okonedo ), who you don't want to startle with anything sad.

In a shack many miles away, 14-year-old Lily Owens ( Dakota Fanning ) lives with her cruel father ( Paul Bettany ). Her best friend and defender, the black housekeeper Rosaleen ( Jennifer Hudson ), endures the wrath of the father, because she will not abandon Lily. One day Rosaleen is so bold as to attempt to register to vote and is beaten by racists in the nearby town. This results, of course, in her arrest. Lily helps her escape the town, and they set off on a journey to the town of Tiburon, which she knows about because of something she found in her late mother's possessions ... the label for a honey jar.

As Lily helps Rosaleen flee from virtual slavery, it's impossible not to think about Huck and Jim, unless political correctness has prevented you from reading that greatest of all novels about black and white in America. From what little we see of the folks in Tiburon, they're as nice as the folks in Lily's hometown were mean.

They land on August's doorstep. She takes them in, over resistance from the militant June. And there the proper story begins, involving discoveries about the past, problems in the present and hopes for the future. These are well-handled melodramatic events that would not benefit from being revealed here.

Dakota Fanning comes of age in "The Secret Life of Bees" and in the somewhat similar but less successful " Hounddog ." She's not a kid anymore. She has always been a good actress, and she is only growing deeper and better. I expect her to make the transition from child to woman with the same composure and wisdom that Jodie Foster demonstrated. Here she plays a plucky, forthright and sometimes sad and needy young teen with the breadth this role requires and a depth that transforms it.

Then observe Sophie Okonedo, the London-born, Cambridge-educated actress who has no trouble at all playing a simpleminded, deeply disturbed country girl. The English have little trouble with Southern accents. Michael Caine explained it to me once. It has to do with Appalachia being settled by working-class Brits. Her May is the heart of the film, because her own heart is so open. She has some delicate emotional transitions to traverse here and convinces us of them. Remember her in " Hotel Rwanda "?

The Alicia Keys character, June, is really too complex for a supporting role. In the workings of the story, she functions as an eye-opener for Rosaleen, who has never guessed black women could be so gifted and outspoken. The three sisters live in an idyllic household that must have taken a powerful lot of honey sales, even then, to maintain. That isn't an issue. We believe it, because Queen Latifah as August beams watchfully on all before her, and nobody can beam like Latifah. If ever there was a woman born to be christened Queen, she's the one.

I have great affection for this film because it honors a novel that many people loved for good reasons. It isn't superior, nor does it dumb it down. It sees what is good and honors it. The South was most likely not like this in 1964. That was the year the Civil Rights Act was passed, and a year before the Voting Rights Act became law. The Boatwright farm, as I said, is really a dream. But in those hard days, people needed dreams.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Film Credits

The Secret Life of Bees (2008)

Rated PG-13 for thematic material and some violence

114 minutes

Dakota Fanning as Lily

Paul Bettany as Owens

Jennifer Hudson as Rosaleen

Alicia Keys as June

Sophie Okonedo as May

Queen Latifah as August

Written and directed by

• Gina Prince-Bythewood

Based on the novel by

• Sue Monk Kidd

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Movie Review | 'The Secret Life of Bees'

A Golden Dollop of Motherly Comfort

By A.O. Scott

• Oct. 16, 2008

Adapted by Gina Prince-Bythewood from the best-selling novel by Sue Monk Kidd, “The Secret Life of Bees” unfolds in a sentimental, honey-glazed land that vaguely resembles South Carolina in 1964. It would be wrong to say that the troubles of that time and place have been wished away — on the contrary, the movie begins with a scene of horrific domestic violence and includes child abuse, a racially motivated beating, suicide and the threat of a lynching — but from the opening voice-over to the final credits, every terror and sorrow is swaddled in warm, therapeutic comfort.

The film insists so strenuously on its themes of redemption, tolerance, love and healing that it winds up defeating itself, and robbing Ms. Kidd’s already maudlin tale of its melodramatic heat. At first there is a jolt of pure Southern Gothic, as Dakota Fanning matter-of-factly tells us that when she was 4, she shot her mother dead. Ms. Fanning plays Lily, who, at the age of 14, when the story takes place, lives with her mean-drunk peach farmer dad, T. Ray (Paul Bettany). He tells her that her mother never loved her and makes her kneel on grits when she misbehaves.

One night Lily, who dreams of being a writer and keeps a box of keepsakes buried in the orchard behind her house, runs away with Rosaleen (Jennifer Hudson), a black employee of T. Ray’s who has been beaten and jailed for trying to register to vote. The two of them find their way to an upcountry town called Tiburon, where they are taken in by three beekeeping sisters named August (Queen Latifah), June (Alicia Keys) and May (Sophie Okonedo).

May, who seems a little simple-minded, is also so deeply empathetic that her sisters have built a “wailing wall,” where she can go to cry when the world’s grief overwhelms her, which is often. June, who plays the cello, is also a political activist (or at least a collector of N.A.A.C.P. T-shirts), and, as such, is a bit leery of the white girl who comes around in need of mothering. But August is a person of such boundless maternal wisdom and generosity that neither June nor Lily nor any of the million bees in August’s care need worry.

Even as terrible things insist on happening, and the bigotry and suspicion of the era take their toll, worries are no match for matriarchal folk religion and the wisdom of the beehive. In its fuzzy linking of female power with insect life, “The Secret Life of Bees” shows a curious kinship with Neil LaBute’s ill-starred remake of “The Wicker Man,” but with nurturing African-American women in place of murderous white ones.

In case they didn’t have enough problems of their own, August and her sisters also have Lily to deal with, and the film seems to struggle with an awkward and unstated tension. You can almost feel how badly it wants to be about the lives, not of bees, but of black women at a pivotal moment in the recent past.

Despite Ms. Prince-Bythewood’s best efforts to retain a sense of history, and Queen Latifah’s shrewd refusal to play her character according to stereotype, the film becomes a familiar and tired fable of black selflessness, in which African-Americans take time out from their struggle against oppression to lift the battered self-esteem of white people who have the good sense not to be snarling bigots. Even Ms. Fanning, weeping on cue and looking uncomfortable otherwise, seems a little abashed that the movie, in the end, has to be all about her.

“The Secret Life of Bees” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). It has violence and some profanity.

THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES

Opens on Friday nationwide.

Directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood; written by Ms. Prince-Bythewood, based on the novel by Sue Monk Kidd; director of photography, Rogier Stoffers; edited by Terilyn A. Shropshire; music by Mark Isham; production designer, Warren Alan Young; produced by Lauren Shuler Donner, James Lassiter, Will Smith and Joe Pichirallo; released by Fox Searchlight Pictures. Running time: 1 hour 50 minutes.

WITH: Queen Latifah (August Boatwright), Dakota Fanning (Lily Owens), Jennifer Hudson (Rosaleen Daise), Alicia Keys (June Boatwright), Sophie Okonedo (May Boatwright), Nate Parker (Neil), Tristan Wilds (Zach Taylor), Hilarie Burton (Deborah Owens) and Paul Bettany (T. Ray Owens).

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The Secret Life of Bees Reviews

Like the rank and file of bees, everyone has their place here and they work towards an end product that is sweet but best enjoyed by children.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 16, 2024

The Secret Life of Bees is a pleasant little film that reduces overwhelming ideas into light emotional drama.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 5, 2023

A wonderful film for families.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4.0 | Sep 22, 2020

The mawkish possibilities inherent in the story are mostly averted, thanks to the high quality of acting.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Dec 12, 2018

The story was okay, but I think there was an underlying mammy factor that rubbed me the wrong way.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Sep 12, 2017

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 17, 2011

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Apr 4, 2011

All the pieces are there for a good movie but there's an undeniable sense of reluctance to put them into play. Every time it seems like the film might be taking a chance it retreats to safe ground.

Full Review | Original Score: 6.5/10 | Apr 1, 2011

A sweet, sentimental story with a sting in the tail.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 3, 2011

Can I tell you a secret? This movie is *really* good. Grab Nana and go see it!

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Aug 3, 2009

Bees is almost too sweet, but with enduring enough performances to make a solid movie.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Jul 6, 2009

(...) Hay un mérito atendible en la directora y es evitar caer en la sensiblería barata que el asunto arriesgaba.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | May 4, 2009

The story is a gentle depiction of harsh times that works best as a coming-of-age parable, not so well as a historical drama.

Full Review | Mar 6, 2009

Once again, Dakota Fanning demonstrates that, even as a teenager, she already has the acting skills and range equal to -- if not better than -- her A-list contemporaries.

Glossy yet ultimately shallow, this platitudinous, unconvincing drama makes The Colour Purple look like Mississippi Burning.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 6, 2009

On most levels the film, which has a surprising number of unconvincing details, takes the sugary option; it shies away from the harsher realities whenever possible.

A dense story about a little girl and the impact her mother's death has on her makes terrific cinema in this beautifully realised film

Full Review | Feb 27, 2009

The film has a dream-like quality above its punchy emotional core

The Secret Life of Bees features another buzz-worthy turn by Dakota Fanning.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 28, 2009

The source material remains affecting and the cast work hard to add dimension to a lacklustre screenplay. But sadly, it adds up to less than the sum of its parts.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 5, 2008

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The secret life of bees.

Sue Monk Kidd's acclaimed novel about a troubled South Carolina teen who finds redemption in an unlikely place has been turned into an affecting ensemble piece that's destined to generate a fair share of awards-season buzz.

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Toronto International Film Festival

TORONTO — Sue Monk Kidd’s acclaimed, Civil Rights-era novel, “The Secret Life of Bees,” about a troubled South Carolina teen who finds redemption in an unlikely place, has been turned into an affecting ensemble piece that’s destined to generate a fair share of awards-season buzz.

The Bottom Line Empty

Nicely adapted and directed by Gina Prince-Blythewood (“Love & Basketball”), the Toronto International Film Festival premiere really takes flight on the wings of its powerhouse, female-centric cast headed up by Dakota Fanning, Queen Latifah, Alicia Keys, Jennifer Hudson and, especially, Sophie Okonedo.At least a couple of those performances are certain to resonate particularly strongly ahead of the film’s October 17 release, which, along with sturdy word-of-mouth should give Fox Searchlight a head-start in its kudos campaigning.

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Young Fanning, who so far seems destined to avoid that awkward teen phase, is as impressive as ever in the role of Lily Owens, a 14-year-old who must cope with tremendous guilt feelings over the death of her mother, as wel as daily castigation at the hands of her cold, abusive father (Paul Bettany). Ultimately fleeing with her caretaker, the strong-willed Rosaleen (Hudson), the two find sanctuary in a big Pepto-Bismol-pink house belonging to successful bee farmer August Boatwright (Queen Latifah) and her two sisters–the independent June (Keys) and the delicate, childlike May (Okonedo).

Director-screenwriter Prince-Blythewood maintains, for the most part, a firm grip on the material, careful not to overplay potentially tricky, big dramatic sequences.

But while that admirable restraint occasionally comes across as tentativeness in other parts of the film, she succeeds in coaxing uniformly lovely performances from her honey of a cast.

Fanning aside, Queen Latifah shines as the calming nurturer of the three sisters; while Keys proves to be as commanding (and as a striking) a presence in front of the camera as she is behind a piano.

And while Hudson, though in a less substantial role, continues to make good on her Oscar-winning Dreamgirls promise, it’s ultimately Okonedo who movingly steals the show as the Boatwright sister who tragically carries the weight of the world on her fragile shoulders.

Having previously been nominated for an Oscar for her turn opposite Don Cheadle in “Hotel Rwanda,” it would be surprising if Okonedo’s achingly poignant performance here didn’t earn her a return ticket.

Opens: October 17 (Fox Searchlight) Production company: Overbrook Entertainment/Donners’ Company Cast: Queen Latifah, Dakota Fanning, Jennifer Hudson, Alicia Keys, Sophie Okonedo Director-screenwriter: Gina Prince-Bythewood Executive producer: Jada Pinkett Smith Producer: Lauren Shuler Donner, James Lassiter, Will Smith, Joe Pichirallo Director of photography: Rogier Stoffers Production designer: Warren Alan Young Music: Mark Isham Costume designer: Sandra Hernandez Editor: Terilyn A. Shropshire Rated PG-13, 110 minutes.

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The Secret Life of Bees

Content caution.

In Theaters

• Queen Latifah as August Boatwright; Dakota Fanning as Lily Owens; Jennifer Hudson as Rosaleen Daise; Alicia Keys as June Boatwright; Sophie Okonedo as May Boatwright; Paul Bettany as T. Ray Owen, Nate Parker as Neil

Home Release Date

• Gina Prince-Bythewood

Distributor

• Fox Searchlight

Movie Review

Blond, blue-eyed Lily Owens, a girl who shares America’s birthday, also shares some of her country’s growing pains as both change drastically during the racially turbulent summer of 1964. That’s when the 14-year-old’s already wobbly life spins into a “whole new orbit” as she flees her father T. Ray’s intolerable abuse.

Lily springs her African-American nanny, Rosaleen Daise, from prison. And the two hitch a ride to Tiburon, S.C. There, Lily’s late mother, Deborah—barely remembered though much longed for by Lily—had mysterious ties, and Lily believes she can reinvent her own world on a clean slate.

But the Civil Rights Act is still so fresh it’s “nothing but a piece of paper.” Lily and Rosaleen have no plan or options for their new life until they meet the “Calendar Sisters”: May, June and August Boatwright. These welcoming black beekeepers, who boast a black Virgin Mary on their honey-jar labels, open their hearts and “Pepto-Bismol”-painted home to teach both runaways the power of community, colorblindness and freely given grace.

Positive Elements

Rosaleen and Lily’s relationship, though tried by stressful events and differing personalities, is ultimately supportive as the two head out together on an unknown and dangerous road. The Boatwrights become the recipients of the pair’s assistance and loyalty, too. And close ties among the five women paint a powerful, sometimes beautiful picture of friendship and racial integration.

While tending bees, master keeper August teaches apprentice Lily “bee-yard etiquette”—which she believes is pretty similar to the world’s: Don’t be afraid—no bee wants to sting you. But don’t be an idiot, either; wear long sleeves. Don’t swat. Send love, because “every living thing wants to be loved.”

Racism is rightfully portrayed as both hurtful and ludicrous. Cultured black women such as August, June and May are among the most logical and loving people in town. And racists are shown by their behavior to be cruel and ignorant.

Despite Lily’s fear that “the truth will wreck everything,” her young African-American friend Zach challenges her to seek and tell it rather than lying about her past. “I know you’re scared,” he says, “Finding out the truth is only half of it. It’s what you do with it that matters.” In response, Lily faces even her most difficult situations with greater courage and honesty. Zack also spurs Lily to dream big and then pursue those dreams.

When discussing their home’s unique pink hue, August tells Lily that, in spite of her own preferences, she chose the color because it “lifts May’s heart”—little things like ugly paint don’t matter in light of someone else’s happiness.

Straight-backed sister June eventually overcomes her fear to love again, and she and her beau, Neil, work their way through a bumpy relationship toward marriage. Momentarily overcoming the racist culture that surrounds him, a kindly store owner offers to sell Lily and Rosaleen a meal.

We see Lily grow from despising her father to accepting (while not condoning) his fallen nature and forgiving him as she puts herself in his broken shoes. We also see her, through August’s affection and guidance, come to grips with the tragedy of her mother’s abandonment and death. As a result, Lily sees her own worth.

Spiritual Elements

This is where things get cloudier than the Boatwrights’ honey. It feels as if these women believe they must reinvent and “improve” Christianity because it, at least as it has been handed down to them, does not contain enough of their own belief in the feminine divine. (Early on Rosaleen asks forcefully what kind of strange religion it is that they practice.)

Illustrating this are the sisters’ home-based worship services. May, June and August, joined by a few friends, gather round a totem-like black Virgin Mary carved with a fist flung into the air. During feverish meetings, they pray to Mary using rosary beads. They claim God provided the wooden statue “to take care of them” when their ancestors pleaded for deliverance. They touch Mary’s painted chest for strength and comfort, and believe she can feel and relieve their spiritual chains since she herself once bore them. Lily, enthralled by her new friends’ seemingly powerful religion, says she finds comfort and healing in the statue. When she prays to the Virgin, she “feels her” and believes Mary “rises and goes further inside” her to fill the mother-shaped hole Lily says her life has been.

Within the apparent syncretism, there is no mention of God’s power and ability to save. And failing to recognize Christ’s redeeming sacrifice, August flatly tells Lily, “There is no perfect love.”

Those who have read the novel of the same title know that author Sue Monk Kidd delves even further into the realms of feminist spirituality and feminine divinity. Which makes the movie’s sticky spirituality no less troubling, but it does shed light on the question of why Bees exhibits such a poor opinion of the majority of its male roles. Rather than looking to a biblical (and masculine) God for healing and guidance, these women look primarily to Mary and the power of their own femininity to, in a sense, rebirth and guide themselves.

Other spiritual content: To diffuse her deeply felt emotions and their devastating effect, May has built and utilizes a backyard “wailing wall” loosely patterned after the Jewish wall in Jerusalem. A song about death is sung twice, once during a funeral. In part, it reads, “Place a beehive on my grave/And let the honey soak through/When I’m dead and gone/That’s what I want from you/The streets of heaven are gold and sunny/But I’ll stick with my plot and a pot of honey.”

Though the song is nonsensical in one sense, it is also representational of what seems to be the sisters’ worldview: God isn’t necessarily as great as He’s cracked up to be. Instead, give me what I know and trust—honey (which in literature sometimes holds mystical powers) and my own beliefs.

Sexual Content

May and Lily discuss how May felt when she first started kissing boys (“Like I was gonna burst”). May proffers advice on how Lily can get boys to kiss her. (Baking a 7UP cake to give them seems to be the answer.)

Innocent May is fond of making “candlestick salad”—an unintentionally (at least on her part) phallic, cherry-topped banana concoction. Lily says, “It looks like—” and Zach cuts her off to reply, “Yeah, I know.”

Zach gently puts his finger into Lily’s mouth, allowing her to taste the honey on it. This awakens new sexual awareness and desire in the teens, though they very quickly try to stifle it. Eventually, as their relationship deepens, they kiss. Neil and June kiss passionately, dance closely and embrace repeatedly.

Violent Content

A brief and somewhat blurred flashback to T. Ray’s viciousness toward his wife soberly opens the movie as he shakes her, pushes her and throws her to the floor. In the struggle, a gun is dropped, and it’s implied that in her effort to give the weapon to her mom, a 4-year-old Lily kills her.

Ten years later, T. Ray continues his violent ways by abusing Lily, swearing at, threatening and shaking her. Once, he grabs her by the hair, hits her and throws her across a room. “Punishment” for Lily involves her kneeling on a pile of dry grits—for hours at a time.

The camera doesn’t flinch as T. Ray angrily acts out. And neither does it blink as Rosaleen is beaten by three bigots who hit her hard in the face, grab her head and throw her to the ground. Her forehead is split open and later we see the bloody gash that has been stitched.

We see police abduct Zach from a movie theater as he legally sits next to Lily. He is beaten off camera and we see the resulting cuts and bruises on his face when he returns from police “custody.”

[ Spoiler Warning ] One of the three Boatwright sisters commits suicide—by drowning herself in a stream—when the weight of her emotions proves too much for her delicate soul. She leaves a note indicating that she’ll be happier in heaven, and that she hopes her absence does her family and friends good. (Lily vomits when she sees the body floating just under the surface of the water.)

Crude or Profane Language

God’s name is coupled with “d–n” a half-dozen times. Jesus’ is abused at least four. “Lord” is also interjected lightly. The s-word is used at least three times. Other blemishes include “a–,” “h—” and “d–n,” each used three or four times. Neil once calls June a “b–ch” when she fails to say yes to his proposal of marriage. The n-word is used four or five times.

Drug and Alcohol Content

Rosaleen chews tobacco. And she uses the resulting spit to defy white assailants—by pouring it on one man’s shoes. T. Ray drinks beer as he punishes Lily.

Other Negative Elements

At 14, Lily is already a criminal—and happily so. She helps Rosaleen escape from a prison hospital bed, lying to authorities and fleeing the town with her.

In a goodbye note of sorts, Lily tells her father that he “should rot in hell.”

Neil and June, in their rocky romance, argue heatedly and often treat each other with disrespect. In turn, June alternately bosses her boyfriend and ignores him, claiming she “doesn’t need him.”

Lily lies incessantly. We’re not shown whether she feels guilty for doing so, and there are no apparent consequences for her lies. In fact, they even seem to help her get and stay out of trouble.

T. Ray’s neglect of Lily is simply miserable. Besides his violence, he deceives her, causing her the great anguish of doubting her mother’s love. Lily also learns that her mother’s pregnancy was illegitimate, causing her to question the strength of parental relationships even more.

Humor. Warmth. Conflict resolution. Richly textured characters who learn intense lessons and grow as a result. These are all among the elements of a captivating tale, and The Secret Life of Bees contains them all. But, unfortunately, not without stinging problems.

This coming-of-age saga may well spread itself too thin, flitting from one sobering subject to another: racism, physical and emotional abuse, emerging sexuality, spirituality, suicide. But it’s the profane language, violence, ignoble character traits and religious mysticism that thoroughly taint and entangle what could have been the simple nectar of emotional healing, racial integration, finding understanding in the face of suffering and emotional growth through deep friendships.

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The Secret Life of Bees

• In 1964, a teenage girl in search of the truth about her mother runs away to a small town in South Carolina and finds a family of independent women who can connect her to her past.
• In 1964 South Carolina, 14-year-old Lily Own is haunted by the memory of her late mother. To escape her lonely life and troubled relationship with her father T-Ray, Lily flees with Rosaleen, her caregiver and friend, to a South Carolina town that holds the secret to her mother's past. Taken in by the intelligent and independent Boatwright sisters, Lily finds solace in their mesmerizing world of beekeeping. — Fox Searchlight Pictures
• A coming-of-age tale for young Lily Owens in the rural, segregated south in 1964 takes a surprising twist when the right to vote lands her and her beloved housekeeper Rosaleen in a perilous situation involving life-threatening conflict. The two manage to wriggle themselves into the home and hearts of the gracious Boatright sisters and end up with more than they expected as they earn their keep from the genteel beekeeping family.
• The movie opens in 1964, during the civil rights movement. Lily is almost fourteen years old and has an abusive father and no mother. In the first scene, a woman in a dress wanders around a room and goes back and forth in a closet. A marble rolls on the ground and a little girl is playing with a clear glass shooter marble and a mirror. The mother, Deborah Owens (Hilarie Burton) is taking clothes from the closet and putting them into a suitcase. Suddenly a man barges in and starts to rage at her, saying that she isn't going to leave him. He throws the suitcase onto the ground and grabs her roughly. The woman reaches for a gun in the closet and points it at the man, telling him that she just wants to go. The man wrestles the gun out of her hand and it falls on the ground. The child's hand goes to pick up the gun. The gun goes off and the scene fades to an older Lily lying in bed, her eyes open. "I killed my mother when I was four years old. That's what I knew about myself. She was all I wanted and I took her away. Nothing else much matters," says Lily's voice over. In the middle of the night, Lily sees hundreds of bees in her room and runs to tell her father, T. Ray (Paul Bettany), who yells at her to go back to bed. Frustrated, Lily runs into their peach orchard and digs up a box she buried there. The box contains her mother's gloves, a small photograph of her mother, and a scrap of wood with a picture of the Virgin Mary on it. Lily puts on her mother's gloves, partially unbuttons her blouse, and holds the photograph close to her heart. While she lies on the soft dirt, staring at the stars, she hears her father calling her. Hurriedly, she takes off the gloves and slips the items back into the box and starts to bury it. While she is buttoning her blouse, her father approaches her and yells for "whoever was out there with her". He grabs her arm and runs her into the house, then shouts, "You tryin' to get yourself pregnant?!" He pours a box of grits onto the floor and without further speech, Lily kneels onto the grits. Her father sits in a chair watching her and drinking a beer. The next morning, Rosaleen, their Negro housekeeper, is sweeping up the grits. She asks Lily how long she was on the grits. Lily replies that she was there for an hour. As Lily sits down, Rosaleen surprises her with a cake for her 14th birthday. As T. Ray walks into the room, Rosaleen states that she is going to take Lily into town to buy her a training bra. T. Ray reluctantly hands her money and quietly says "Happy birthday" as he walks out of the room. On TV they all see that the Civil Rights Bill was passed. When Rosaleen and Lily start to walk downtown, they are confronted by four bigots who call Rosaleen some bad names, and in return, Rosaleen pours her jar of spit on their feet. Unwilling to apologize, she is beat up by them and screaming, Lily is held back. After T. Ray and Lily get back home, Lily says, "You know most girls would want toys or whatever for their birthday, but I was thinkin' . . . maybe you could tell me 'bout my mother instead." T. Ray replies that her mother would spend hours luring bugs out of the house with "graham crackers and marshmallows and stuff", but he would always just kill 'em. He then looks down to see a roach crawling across the floor, and steps on it. Lily still demands to know more about her, and her father replies that she left and when she came back, she got all of her stuff but she wanted to leave Lily behind. When Lily calls him a liar, he is furious and tells her to stay in her room. When he leaves the house, Lily leaves a letter saying ". . . don't even bother to look for me . . . " and leaves. She goes to the "colored ward" of the hospital and finds Rosaleen. Together they run away to a town where Lily's mother was thought to have once lived. There in a store they find a honey jar with the same picture of the Virgin Mary as was on the slab of wood that Lily retained. When they ask the store owner who made this honey, he leads them to the home of August Boatwright and her sisters, May and June. May used to have a twin, April, who is revealed to have died later in the movie. Lily experiences growing up in their household and for the first time ever, lives with a real, loving, caring family making honey and being a part of each others' lives. Later on, May gets so depressed she drowns herself by placing a large rock upon her chest and laying down in a shallow pool. August and her sisters decide to change Rosaleen's name to July. Lily shows August the picture of her mother, and August instantly recognizes her as "Deborah". As August and Lily discuss Deborah, Lily confesses that while trying to help her mother, she ended up killing her, after which she breaks down crying and runs to her room. Screaming, she throws several jars of honey at the wall, smashing them. T. Ray comes to the Boatwrights' looking for Lily. He then gives August permission to take care of Lily for as long as she wants to stay there. As T. Ray drives off, he admits that the day Deborah left, she wasn't only coming back for her stuff, but coming back for Lily. He says he lied because she wasn't coming back for him. Lily's voice over states that she thought, as T. Ray drove off saying, "Good riddance," that he was really saying, "Lily, you'll be better off here with all of these mothers."

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Review: 'The Secret Life of Bees'

Set in South Carolina during the 1960s, 'Bees' tackles racism and redemption but slips over the sappiness line.

• By Peter Rainer Film critic of The Christian Science Monitor

October 18, 2008

The honey runs thick in " The Secret Life of Bees ," and so does the treacle. The cloying dullness sets in early, although not from the first frame, which begins with a girl's voice-over narration telling us, "I killed my mother when I was 4 years old." This sounds like something Mickey Spillane might have cooked up.

In fact, the movie, written and directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood , is derived from a popular 2002 novel by Sue Monk Kidd , which is mostly set in South Carolina shortly after the passage of the Civil Rights Act. This setting allows the movie's talented but underutilized cast to try out their Deep South accents while sashaying, wriggling, cooing, and weeping.

Dakota Fanning is Lily, who accidentally shot her mother and now, years later, is stuck in a physically abusive relationship with her father ( Paul Bettany ), from whom she flees with the family housekeeper Rosaleen ( Jennifer Hudson ) into the warm embrace of beekeeper August Boatwright ( Queen Latifah ) and August's sisters May ( Sophie Okonedo ) and June ( Alicia Keys ). (What happened to July?)

The secret haven August provides, far away from Lily's father, is a ramshackle home painted the color of – as one character says – Pepto-Bismol . But all is not well in paradise. Weepy May is emotionally unstable; June, who plays a mean cello and is all too clearly supposed to represent the fiery, new, civil rights generation, is having boyfriend issues. In the midst of it all is August, with her voluminous benevolence. She's such an idealized matriarch that even Queen Latifah's prodigious gift for down-home humor can't quite humanize her.

Among the cast, Hudson is the most neglected. Although she has ample screen time in the early going, and is very fine, she practically disappears from view once the scene shifts to bee country. Since the relationship between Lily and Rosaleen, with its echoes of Carson McCullers and Harper Lee , is the most resonant in the film, it seems grossly negligent to skimp on it in favor of the ensuing melodramatics.

Fanning, thankfully, is growing out of her grating adorableness phase. She is now poised to embark on a journey far more treacherous than Lily's in "The Secret Life of Bees." I am speaking of the move from girlhood to young adulthood, a passage that has capsized the careers of so many child actors. Grade: C- (Rated PG-13 for thematic material and some violence.)

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Movie Review: The Secret Life of Bees

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The secret life of bees.

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The secret life of bees, the secret life of bees was incredibly moving. its just become one of my favorite movies., great movie with a great sense of reality, very emotional..., this movie made me cry.

The Secret Life of Bees (2008)

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The Secret Life of Bees (2008)

The secret life of bees.

Set in South Carolina in 1964, the film is the moving tale of Lily Owens (Fanning) a 14 year-old girl who is haunted by the memory of her late mother (Burton). To escape her lonely life and troubled relationship with her father (Bettany), Lily flees with Rosaleen (Hudson), her caregiver and only friend, to a South Carolina town that holds the secret to her mother's past. Taken in by the intelligent and independent Boatwright sisters (Latifah, Okonedo and Keys), Lily finds solace in their mesmerizing world of beekeeping, honey and the Black Madonna.

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The Secret Life of Bees review – blazing songs light up civil rights drama

Almeida theatre, London A young white woman and her Black housekeeper flee across the American south amid the historic struggle, buoyed by astonishingly powerful music

F irst seen off-Broadway , the ground-shaking force of this musical lies in songs so blazing that they give goosebumps at every turn. The story, adapted from Sue Monk Kidd’s novel about an interracial friendship amid the civil rights era, seems almost secondary.

Starting out in South Carolina in 1964, as Lyndon B Johnson announces his civil rights bill, it is a Thelma and Louise-style road trip with added racial politics. Lily (Eleanor Worthington-Cox), a young motherless white woman, takes fugitive flight with her Black housekeeper, Rosaleen (Abiona Omonua), who has been attacked and imprisoned. Their quest lands them in a community of indomitable sisters led by beekeeper and businesswoman August Boatwright (Rachel John).

Under the direction of Whitney White, with a succinct book by Lynn Nottage , it is Duncan Sheik’s music, accompanied by Susan Birkenhead’s rousing lyrics and a phenomenal band, that carries the story. The score contains soul, folk, blues and gospel. Some songs are hymnal. All are sublime.

The production is drenched in dewy rays of light (design by Neil Austin) for the duration, conjuring an otherworldliness that bears shades of Toni Morrison’s magical realism. The sisters’ home is also their church, with its own Black Madonna. The story of struggle and trauma is accompanied by Black joy and strength which, in this adaptation, bypasses a tragedy towards the end of the original novel.

Lily’s story – of her mother and her romance with Zachary (Noah Thomas) – is prioritised while Rosaleen melts into the background. The Boatwrights are arguably mobilised around saving Lily – the drama’s only white woman. But if this is the case, the narrative also contains the important message that progress needs to happen together: Lily and Rosaleen never let each other down, while the Boatwrights depart from cliche by being highly cultured, powerful, Black women in this era, which feels quietly radical.

Omonua’s voice has a distinctive clarity and power in songs such as Sign My Name and Tiburon while every other voice is as big, rich or voluptuous. There is an almost delirious momentum to Our Lady of Chains, as the women sing, scream, stomp, slam and knock on wood (choreography by Shelley Maxwell) and the song becomes a form of angry protest and invocation to the Black Madonna’s high authority.

There is a honeyed tone to the drama that could be dreadfully schmaltzy but here passes for sweetness. Some characters are reduced to types, especially the vulnerable Lily (beautifully performed by Worthington-Cox nonetheless) and her abusive father, T-Ray (Mark Meadows). The story meanders, comes to a standstill at times and leaves loose threads. What is surprising is that none of this matters. Come for the music. Go home in awe.

At the Almeida theatre, London , until 27 May

• Almeida theatre
• Lynn Nottage

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THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES

"false idol worship".

What You Need To Know:

(PaPaPa, FRFRFR, FeFe, PCPC, B, C, LLL, VV, S, N, M) Very strong, slightly mixed, pagan worldview with very strong false religious doctrine that makes a totem out of the Virgin Mary in a heretical way, implicitly replacing Mary with Jesus Christ in three scenes or so, with a feminist subtext and a politically correct negative view of Southern white males, mitigated slightly by some moral and Christian elements, including a barely heard mention of Jesus during a prayer at the foot of a carving meant to represent the Virgin Mary; 18 obscenities, 11 strong profanities and three light profanities; brief strong violence such as man beats, punches and kicks black woman, married couple fight and it is implied that child accidentally shoots her mother to death during fight when she picks up gun her mother dropped, implied beating of black teenage boy, white men forcibly remove black teenage boy from movie theater when he’s caught sitting with white teenage girl, drowned body of suicide victim is found and cannot be revived, and father makes teenage daughter kneel on uncooked grits, which leaves her knees with red scrapes; no sex scenes but husband falsely thinks wife is cheating on him and father warns teenage daughter about getting pregnant when he finds her in a field late at night, plus 14-year-old girl kisses slightly older teenage boy; brief upper male nudity; no alcohol; no smoking; and, lying and woman says, “There is no perfect love,” which is false.

More Detail:

THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES doesn’t reach the heretical levels of the anti-Christian diatribe THE DA VINCE CODE, especially the book, but it promotes heresy nevertheless. It also contains politically correct elements turning Southern white males into the kind of cliché stereotypes that Hollywood has been exploiting for decades. We fervently agree that negative, degrading stereotypes of minorities are really bad, but certainly such stereotypes of white males are just as bad.

The story opens in North Carolina with a young married couple having a fight. The man, T Ray, looks like he’s ready to get violent, so the wife pulls out a gun. T Ray knocks the gun away, but the couple’s four-year-old daughter, Lily, picks up the gun. Lily tries to give it back to her mother, but the gun goes off, killing Lily’s mother in the process.

Ten years later, 14-year-old Lily lives under the thumb of her father, who clearly does not care for her. Lily has befriended the family’s black maid, Rosaleen. One day, while Lily and Rosaleen are walking to town, some racist white males confront Rosaleen. When Rosaleen refuses to back down, the white males beat her up, putting her into the hospital.

Lily sneaks into the hospital. Together, she and Rosaleen run away to the North Carolina hometown of Lily’s mother. As luck would have it, they run into August Boatright, the mother’s black nanny. August and her sisters, June and May, run a popular honey farm. Eventually, the secrets of the past come out. Racism rears its ugly head again, however, when Lily becomes interested in the black teenager who helps August tend the bees and comb their honey.

THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES lays on its righteous indignation against racism a little too thickly. The white Southern males are portrayed to be almost as dumb and venal as they possibly can be. Conversely, on the complete opposite side of the racial divide, the black women are portrayed to be as wise, loving, courageous, and spiritually connected as they possibly can be. This is pretty one-dimensional, to say the least.

Even worse, however, is the heresy in the movie. Lily learns that August, her sisters and their friends treat a wooden, African American carving of the Virgin Mary like a spiritual totem or talisman. The women pray to the carving in their hours of need. Thus, instead of worshipping Jesus Christ, these women seem to worship this pagan idol carved by the hand of man. This heresy is confirmed at the end when Lily writes in her diary that the Virgin Mary is “inside” of her. Effectively, the filmmakers have replaced Jesus Christ and His Gospel with a pseudo-Christian, neo-feminist religion.

This is rank heresy. Such false pagan doctrines are clearly abhorrent. They directly contradict the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The need to make a feminist idol out of the Virgin Mary when Jesus Christ is sufficient for our salvation and our sanctification is itself a sexist ideology. The biblical truth is entirely different, however. Mary actually calls God her Savior in Luke 1:46-55, showing that people should look to God through Jesus Christ rather than anyone else for their salvation. In fact, Mary explicitly says in Luke that the blessings she has received are because of God and the “great” things He has done for her. Venerating or admiring the Virgin Mary is not a problem. Worshipping her and replacing Jesus Christ with a false depiction of Mary that violates the historical record is, however, wrong. All Christians should reject and condemn such obvious heresy. The movie’s heresies could easily have been fixed by getting rid of the last line of dialogue, adding positive references to Jesus Christ, and inserting positive references to a regular Christian church, including perhaps a Roman Catholic one where the Virgin Mary is put into a proper, more orthodox perspective.

It is telling that THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES not only contains pagan heresy; it also contains a significant number of profanities misusing the name of God and the name of Jesus Christ. This shows how careless, mindless and evil the filmmakers have become in promoting their fuzzy, heretical theology in what is, sadly, another lame “chick flick” for former child star Dakota Fanning.

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