As a novel, "The Secret Life of Bees," isn't an obvious tearjerker. Sue Monk Kidd's best-selling book about 1960s South Carolina is slow and subtle, filled with multidimensional characters and compelling civil-rights issues. But for the big screen, with an all-female, mega-Hollywood cast that includes Dakota Fanning and Queen Latifah, director Gina Prince-Bythewood engineered it to produce fat, heavy tears.

There's so much soft lighting and sweeping music, not to mention uplifting songs by musicians-turned-actresses Alicia Keys and Jennifer Hudson, that like it or not, even the most hardened hearts will be reaching for a tissue.

Emotions are tugged from the start, when a baby, Lily Owens, accidentally shoots her mother. Lily's left in the care of her boorish father, T. Ray (Paul Bettany), and her nanny, Rosaleen (Hudson).

Bettany is grisly and dirty, but too likable an actor to capture the awfulness of Lily's dad. The scene where he makes Lily (Fanning) kneel on a pile of grits until her knees bleed doesn't have the same gut-churning impact as in the book.

Still, that incident, along with one in which Rosaleen gets beat up for trying to register to vote, gives Lily the strength to get away from T. Ray and find out more about her mother.

All Lily has left from her mother is a painted piece of wood with the name of a town — Tiburon, S.C. — written on the back. So, that's where she and Rosaleen go.

Annoying as she can be, Fanning is nonetheless a talented actress and she proves it once again in this film. Fanning fades into sad, 14-year-old Lily, giving her a defeated yet determined quality. She embodies Lily much easier than Hudson does Rosaleen.

But their relationship is complex, and both actresses are able to portray the various layers of an interracial friendship in 1964.

Once in Tiburon, they find their way to a Pepto-Bismol-colored house belonging to the Boatwright sisters, charmingly named after spring and summer months.

There's the uptight June (Keys), the childlike May (Sophie Okonedo) and the matriarch, August (Latifah).

The Boatwrights are extremely strong characters, and though Latifah delivers another fine performance, it seems that Keys is here just to sell tickets.

Not that she does a bad job as the prickly music teacher, but surely there are more talented African-American actresses who could have done better with the role.

The sisters have a successful business, Black Madonna Honey, and they seem to reside in a bubble, away from the racial tension happening right after the Civil Rights Act was passed.

But then Lily and Rosaleen seek refuge in the sisters and everything changes, especially after Lily develops a crush on August's godson, Zach ("90210's" Tristan Wilds).

There are lots of honey-as-romantic metaphor scenes, creating the feeling of an after-school special. But the theme that ultimately shines through is Lily's desire to find unconditional love.

And whether that story is delivered quietly in print or in softly lit film, the path to Lily finding her way is the reason this story has so many fans.

"The Secret Life of Bees." Rated: PG-13. Running time: 1 hr., 50 min. 2.5 stars.

To find out more about Nina Garin and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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