• Starring: Dakota Fanning, Jennifer Hudson, Queen Latifah
  • Summary: The Secret Life of Bees, based on the New York Times best selling novel and set in South Carolina in 1964, is the moving tale of Lily Owens a 14 year-old girl who is haunted by the memory of her late mother. To escape her lonely life and troubled relationship with her father, Lily flees with Rosaleen, 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, Lily finds solace in their mesmerizing world of beekeeping. (Fox Searchlight) Expand
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 14 out of 32
  2. Negative: 0 out of 32
  1. 88
    Above all, it contains characters I care for, played by actors I admire.
  2. Reviewed by: Richard Corliss
    60
    The Secret Life of Bees may not be a "To Kill a Mockingbird" on page or screen, but Fanning is the center of its soul and intelligence. It's Hollywood's job to find strong parts for this precocious genius as she matures into womanhood.
  3. 60
    May be overly sentimental at times, but at least it's about something.

See all 32 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 7 out of 8
  2. Negative: 0 out of 8
  1. AlbertC.
    10
    Outstanding!
    • 0 of 0 users said yes
  2. KenS.
    9
    I love films that reach deep into my soul to resurrect emotions that are stiffled by the daily march of stress layden life. This film crushes ones heart. tosses it around, plants it on an alter and then heals it. Expand
    • 0 of 0 users said yes
  3. ChadS.
    5
    The Boatwright sisters live in a pink house; the "home of the free", according to John Cougar Mellencamp's "Pink Houses", a song that encapsulates the promises made in the bylaws of the Emancipation Proclamation, which suggests that the "little pink houses" are made for "you and me". The Boatwright sisters not only have property, they also own a thriving honey business. But this is 1964, a hundred some-odd years after Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves, and still, the little pink houses for black folks were probably few and far between. Lest not we forget, a diner could display Black Madonna Honey in their window display, but serving black madonnas was another story altogether. But unlike the middle-class "Negroes" in John Singleton's "Rosewood", this utopian life the Boatwright women lead, never comes under attack attack by an unruly white mob. Rather, in "The Secret Life of Bees", it's a pre-teen girl, Lily Owens(Dakota Fanning), who brings disquietude to their lives, unwittingly, like a naive colonialist. When Lily roams around the Boatwright property, this precocious child, in a sense, discovers the woods, discovers the stream; she takes off her footwear and places her bare feet in the water. This act, akin to making yourself at home, is also analogous to colonization. Back home, Lily had a map with a thumbtack pinned to this very spot. Joseph Conrad wrote(from the novel "Heart of Darkness"), "Now when I was a little chap I had a passion for maps. I would look for hours...and lose myself in all the glories of exploration." Although the film expunges blame towards Lily from her role in a family tragedy, it's worthy of note that at the funeral, the filmmaker distances the girl from the black-garbed, black-skinned mourners, by dressing her in a white dress. Prior to the gathering, Lily touches the heart of the black madonna, which saves her, but at the expense of her disparate housemate. Expand
    • 0 of 0 users said yes

See all 8 User Reviews

Recommended Products

  1. Seven Pounds Image
  2. WALL-E Image
  3. Warrior Image