THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES

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Sue Monk Kidd's 2002 novel supplies the source material for this stagnate '60s era melodrama with an emphasis on mellow.

Dakota Fanning plays Lily, a traumatized little girl who escapes the clutches of her abusive father (Paul Bettany) with the help of a housekeeper (Jennifer Hudson) to live with a family of African American women on their beekeeping farm in South Carolina.

Queen Latifah plays the home's matriarch August Boatwright whose sisters, a kooky May (overplayed by Sophie Okonedo) and conceited June (Alicia Keyes), are poised to stir up subplot dramas of their own.

Lily takes full advantage of the freedom afforded her by August Boatwright to question the acts and motivations of her abandoning mother (Deborah Owens) who spent time at the farm when she was young.

"The Secret Life of Bees" is further evidence that there should be a moratorium on secret-life-of-anything movies.

Rated PG-13. 110 mins.