Parents Television Council Reviews

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Fourteen-year-old Lily Owens has grown up in squalor with an abusive father, and fantasizes about the mother she hardly knew. When her black nanny/friend Rosaleen is attacked by racists, Lily and Rosaleen flee. Inspired by an icon of the Virgin Mary her mother had owned, Lily seeks refuge at the home of loving and wise beekeeper August Boatwright. Lily is inspired by August and her sisters, peppery and cultured June and mentally disturbed but upbeat May, and their devotion to the Virgin Mary. Over time Lily makes peace with the loss of her mother -- and hope for her future.

Set during the beginning of civil rights in the South of 1964, much of the plot of The Secret Life of Bees is driven by the racist violence which characterized the era. Rosaleen is beaten by racists who seek to prevent her from voting, and carries the scars of this attack throughout much of the movie. When Lily attends a movie with her black friend Zach, he is also attacked (though his beating takes place offscreen). One character commits suicide by drowning, and the body is explicitly seen. Lily’s father T. Ray is a harsh, unloving figure who bullies, pushes and slaps Lily at various points in the film. Perhaps most disturbing is the film’s opening scene: Lily flashes back to a physical fight between her mother and father; picking up a fallen gun and trying to defend her mother, Lily accidentally kills her. The movie’s opening words are, “I killed my mother when I was four years old.”

Language in The Secret Life of Bees is harsh in the extreme, with the words listed above used repeatedly. The profanity is mostly confined to the first half-hour of the movie, when Lily is still living with her abusive father and encounters other white male racists. Once Lily moves in with the women, language becomes much more moderate.

Apart from the rampant racism displayed by whites (though not by Lily), there is no behavior of concern to parents in the film. Sexual content is limited to a few passionate kisses between June and her boyfriend.   

The Secret Life of Bees realistically and poetically contrasts the loving world of the Boatwright sisters’ bee farm with the harsh, racist outside world. The value and importance of loving, forgiving and lifting up others and of letting go of hatred is repeatedly stressed. The sisters’ love for one another and devotion to prayer and the Virgin Mary is shown as a positive force which helps Lily come to terms with the tragedies and pain in her young life, and which inspires her with hope. Though the film is ultimately positive, much stress is given to the sadness and conflict in life, and children may find it confusing and downbeat. 

Though the film has many positive messages and at times a gentle and even elegiac tone, this film’s language, violence and mature themes make it inappropriate for young children. The Parents Television Council does not recommend The Secret Life of Bees for viewers under age 16.

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