Starring Dakota Fanning and Queen Latifah. Rated PG. Opens Friday, October 17, at the Fifth Avenue Cinemas and the Cinemark Tinseltown

Although much of it plays as a kind of Fried Green Ebony Magnolias, The Secret Life of Bees has enough character of its own to wring some feeling from all but the most tear-stingy viewers.

Dakota Fanning, who may yet become a decent actor if she overcomes acute camera consciousness (or camera-conscious cuteness), plays Lily, coming to terms with a tough teenaged life in 1964 South Carolina. Lily, like the movie, is burdened with a preposterous beginning: at age 4, she accidentally shot her beloved mother; 10 years later, this white kid hits the road to escape her brutal father (Paul Bettany, who does well in a thankless role) with her “negro” housemaid Rosaleen (the somewhat neglected Jennifer Hudson).

Based on Sue Monk Kidd’s bestselling novel, Bees drifts uncertainly until the gals find shelter in an unusual home run by three contrasting sisters. Young June (Alicia Keys) is a cello-playing black activist, simple middle sister May (Sophie Okonedo) was traumatized by a childhood tragedy, and elder August (cast standout Queen Latifah) holds the family together with her wisdom and business acumen, running the honey farm referred to in the title.

A sophomore outing for Gina Prince-Bythewood, the film is too insistent in its jokiness, and the melodrama is overcooked—not that either are needed at the height of the civil-rights upheaval of this era. But when things settle down enough for the director to simply develop character and mood, the movie takes on a more distinct, sometimes surprisingly quiet personality. This, more than plot twists or emotional payoffs—and putting aside the multiple-mammy ickiness at the centre of the story—works to get across what the story really wants to convey: the too-often anonymous strength of poor women in the face of trying times.