A few years back, I read The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd and really loved it. It's really a lovely story about strong and interesting women and love and magic and, of course, honey. Because I got a lot out of the novel, I'm glad that I waited a considerable amount of time before seeing the movie.
The movie is well-acted, well-written and visually pleasing. It hits most of the high points and tells a great story. I even forgot to pick at all the places it departed from the book while I was watching the film. As far as most book-to-film attempts, I'd say this made a really good effort.
As I thought about it after the movie, there were a number of things missing that could have been built in more. Like the magic. I understand that might make a movie harder to sell and that current audiences want either completely fantastic or gritty realist films. I like stories that are in between, that have the kind of magic you think maybe exists in the real world if you looked hard enough or if you had been able to go to August Boatwright's honey house.
Including more of this in the film would have taken it just a step farther for me and would have helped make more sense of certain aspects, such as Lily's sadness over bringing the real world into the honey farm and the real power of the spiritual community with the Black Madonna. I'd say this is a solid B or B+, but it could have gone the distance.
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