There are some books that are so colorful they’re hard to forget.

Kathryn Stockett’s debut novel The Help (available at Bay Books) featured the distinct voices of African-American maids in 1960s Jackson, Miss. Readers across the world embraced Stockett’s story as the maids explained the effects of racial injustice while simultaneously helping a white woman come of age in a shockingly segregated community. Now the book has been made into a film worthy of the Oscars. If you want to see it at the Village Theater, you might want to purchase a ticket in advance. Why?

The film is selling out, and for good reason.

When converting a novel to a visual medium, filmmakers too often make the story bigger, change the emphasis, pepper it with special effects, incorporate more sex, crude language or laughs. If not adapted with the original artistic vision in mind, the screenwriter can leave a lot of narrative color on the cutting room floor.

Not this time.

Kudos to The Help director/executive producer Tate Taylor, who also wrote the screenplay. Taylor managed to keep the spirit and essence of the book intact, and yet allow the characters to further develop. They are beautifully captured in brave and unbelievably real performances by actresses Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, Cicely Tyson, and Emma Stone; the pie-eating villain played by Bryce Dallas Howard, and the lovable white-trash gal from Sugar Ditch played by Jessica Chastain also stand out.

This movie will appeal to both readers and filmgoers. While the book gave the maids a voice, the film gives them glowing importance. As the maids tell their story, you can’t help but snicker with them in the kitchen, cry when they are ridiculed, smell the fried chicken as they cook, and wince at the disturbing injustices.

The film is very black and white in its message. The white gloves, pale plantation homes, bright pearls, luminescent Crisco and porcelain indoor toilets are purposeful hues. So are the black, dangerous nights the maids run through to reach home, the drab uniforms and their darkened bruises.

In The Help, black and white blends together to make Oscar gold. I hope the ladies bring it home on awards night. I’ll be watching them over a slice of pizza. But please, no Terrible Awful chocolate pie.