This story is set in the middle of the civil rights movement. Lily (Dakota Fanning) lives and works at a peach farm with her emotionally vacant and abusive father, T. Ray (Paul Bettany), and her housekeeper, Rosaleen (Jennifer Hudson). Lily’s mother died when she was four years old and she blames herself for the accident. All Lily wants is to learn more about her mother and be loved by her father. T. Ray struggles to talk about his late wife and has nothing left for his daughter.

To give Lily something to be happy about on her 14th birthday, Rosaleen makes up an excuse to take Lily into town. However, they encounter a group of racist men that proceed to antagonize and degrade Rosaleen. She ends up dumping her spit cup on one of the men’s shoes and he and the other men proceed to beat her while demanding that she apologize. Lily is forced to watch as the remaining men restrain her. Eventually a crowd gathers and the police arrive. T. Ray comes to pick Lily up, but he does nothing to help Rosaleen. She gets taken to the hospital by the police and is kept under surveillance in a separate ward. When Lily and T. Ray arrive at home, they get into a huge argument. An angry T. Ray tells Lily that on the day her mother died, she was packing up all her stuff to leave, but that she wasn’t planning on taking Lily with her.

A deeply hurt and fed up Lily decides to rescue Rosaleen and run away to a town that she thinks her mother used to live in. Lily has a small box of her mother’s belongings that include a unique picture of the Virgin Mary on a wooden slab with the name of a town, Tiburon, on the back. Rosaleen and Lily find their way to Tiburon and Lily spots that same picture of Mary on a jar of honey. She questions a store owner and learns that a woman by the name of August Boatwright (Queen Latifah) makes the honey, so she decides to pay her a visit.

When Rosaleen and Lily get to the house, they meet August and her two sisters, May (Sophie Okonedo) and June (Alicia Keyes). Lily makes up some tall tale and even though August knows that she’s not telling the truth, she lets Lily and Rosaleen stay anyway. In return for food and shelter, Rosaleen works in the kitchen and Lily helps August with the honey and bees. In the meantime, Lily’s dad continues to search for her. Lily begins to feel at home with the Boatwrights and even makes a new friend, Zach (Tristan Wilds). She starts to worry though about eventually having to tell the truth and how it will ruin everything.

The film is based on Sue Monk Kidd’s novel of the same name and before I hit play I was extremely skeptical about how it was going to turn out. I was pleasantly surprised though. The entire cast gave a great performance. It’s no surprise that Dakota Fanning does a great job and Queen Latifah usually delivers as well. The real surprises came from both Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keyes. This story is heart-warming and heart-wrenching all at the same time. It touches on so many different issues and still tells an incredible story. You also learn some important and insightful life lessons from the secret life of bees!