After stuffing 12 Chinese proverbs into my brain, I decided to treat myself a little by watching a whole movie. (Not that I don't watch TV but I usually watch the half hour series instead of the 2-hour whole movies during exam.) And yes, that was what I watched. Initially, I didn't expect to like it that much but I was proved wrong. It's the first movie starring black people that I actually love. Maybe it's because of Dakota Fanning. (God, I'm such a racist.)
Anyway, the movie is about a 14 year-old girl who lives with her abusive father and her kind housekeeper, Rosaline. The film opens with her mother trying to leave her father when he suddenly barges in. Her mother's gun fell to the floor and the little girl picks it up. "I killed my mother when I was four years old, that's what I knew about myself. She was all I wanted and I took her away. Nothing else much mattered."
On Lily's fourteenth birthday, she had a huge fight with her father, prompting him to tell her that her mother was going to leave her behind with him on the day she died. When her father is asleep, Lily leaves a note for him and left with Rosaline to a town called Tiburon where her mother had once lived. They were lead to the house of August Boatwright and her sisters, May and June after inquiring about the manufacturer of a honey jar belonging to her mother.
Lily lies about her being an orphan and that Rosaline is her nanny and they have no place to stay. The sisters took them in and they offer to help with the honey. At first, June is obvious with her hatred for white people but she soon warms up to Lily. She also becomes good friends with August's godson, Zach.
When Zach gets kidnapped by a racist mob, May, who is traumatized by her twin sister's death and gets upset easily commits a suicide. Soon after her death, Zach returns bruised and distraught but otherwise alright.
It is then revealed that August was once Lily's mother, Deborah's nanny. As August and Lily discuss Lily's mother, Deborah, Lily confesses that she, while trying to help her mother, wound up killing her. She also confesses her belief that Zach's disappearance was all her fault, as well, so she needs to leave, convinced it is best for everyone that she leave since she is unlovable and destroys all that she comes across. Lily breaks down crying and runs to the honey house.
Later on, her father comes to the Boatwright home looking for Lily. When he sees Lily wearing her mother's pin, he mistakes her for her mother for a second, and tells her she can't leave him. After August shows up to calm the scene, he unwillingly gives August permission to take care of Lily for as long as she wanted to stay there. As he drives off, he admits that the day Deborah left, she wasn't only coming back for her stuff, but coming back for Lily. When asked why he lied, he said, "because she wasn't coming back for me."
Lily's voice over states that she thought, as her father drove off saying "Good Riddance", he was really saying "Lily, you'll be better off here with all of these mothers."
Lily is shown writing the contents of the entire story into the notebook that Zach gave her, and she puts it in May's wall. She walks off into the honey house as the scene fades to black.
P.S. Oh yeah, forgot the warning. This is a major tear jerker. As in from start to finish. Prepare lots of tissues. And it's rated PG-13.
P.P.S. Also starring Alicia Keys, Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson, Paul Bettany(!) and Sophie Okonedo.
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