Aibileen Clark (Viola Davis) is a middle-aged African-American maid who has spent her life raising white children and has recently lost her only son. Minny Jackson (Octavia Spencer) is an African-American maid whose outspokenness has gotten her fired many times and built up a reputation for being a difficult employee, but she makes up for this with her baking skills. Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan (Emma Stone) is a young white woman who has recently moved back home after graduating from the University of Mississippi to find that her beloved childhood maid has mysteriously disappeared. These three stories intertwine to explain how life in early-1960s' Jackson, Mississippi revolves around "the help"; yet despite the intimate quarters in which whites and blacks live, there is always a certain distance between them because of racial lines. Wikipedia