ADAPTED from Sue Monk Kid's acclaimed novel, The Secret Life Of Bees is an affecting and well crafted rites of passage story set in racially divided '60s South Carolina.

Plucky teenager Lily Owens (Dakota Fanning) is one of the few people in town to take people as they come, happily treating her nursemaid Rosaleen (Jennifer Hudson) as her equal.

When the servant endures a beating at the hands of local bigots and is consigned to a hospital bed, Lily vows to spirit her friend away to a safer place.

In doing so, she faces up to the death of her own mother. As chick flicks trumpeting female empowerment go, this is a hugely enjoyable and heartfelt diversion.