Innisfail
Innifail Library Film Circuit
Next Showing – Sunday March 8 – 7:30 PM at the Century Theatre
Secret Life of Bees
A Gala screening at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival®, The Secret Life of Bees is a powerful and moving story of love, friendship and courage in small-town America. Adapting Sue Monk Kidd’s bestselling novel of the same name, director Gina Prince-Blythewood has created a heartwarming tale of trust and self-discovery.
Secret Life of Bees
Set in South Carolina in 1964, The Secret Life of Bees stars the talented and charismatic Dakota Fanning (I Am Sam, Charlotte’s Web) as young protagonist Lily Owens. Lily suffered the trauma of losing her mother at a very young age and still has not come close to recovering from the loss. Now a young teen, Lily leads an almost reclusive life on a peach farm, where she lives with her volatile father (Paul Bettany, A Beautiful Mind, The Da Vinci Code) and is left largely to her own devices.
Luckily for Lily, her caregiver is also her sole friend, Rosaleen (Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls, Sex and the City). Together, they decide to flee the farm and embark on a journey to a nearby small town where Lily hopes she will uncover some of the secrets of her mother’s – and her own – past. Their sojourn takes them on numerous adventures, but they are finally taken in by the witty and spunky Boatwight sisters, played by Queen Latifah (Chicago, Hairspray), singer-songwriter Alicia Keys and Sophie Okonedo (Skin, Stormbreaker). While there, they discover the world of beekeeping and honey-making as well as the far more expansive world of trust, kindness and forgiveness.
The Secret Life of Bees has all the ingredients of a feelgood film journey for all ages. Less a fairy tale than an adventure story set amid a very real context of pain, inner strife and redemption, the film, with the help of its truly gifted cast, reveals what can happen when friendship and generosity help a wounded little girl understand the meaning of family and unconditional love.