North Country (2005)

I was fortunate to see North Country last night in Boston with several of my friends. While this movie may not be the best for some survivors of sexual harassment/assault because of the graphic nature of some scenes, I found this movie to be tastefully done and respectful to the sensitive nature of this case. I have come away from this movie with an even greater drive to work towards the rights of women. Situations like these have improved, but they are still out there. The three main actresses did a phenomenal job in the movie, and I do not think the film would have been as successful if Charlize Theron, Sissy Spacek, and Frances McDormand had decided to not be involved in this project. This film was powerful, thought provoking, and also showed magnificent beauty even in the most desolate of places and heartbreaking conditions. I rarely ever purchase movies, but this is one I would not only see when it is released in October, I would purchase it as well.

Fmovies: When divorced,single mom Josey Aimes(Charlize Theron,who's definitely NOT afraid to get dirty or uglified for a role)begins work in the rural Minnesota Taconite mines--where her father(Richard Jenkins)has worked a long,secure job--even she isn't prepared for the kind of mental,verbal and physical abuse she and her fellow women receive from the fellow miners who(surprise!)don't cotton well to ladies working in the pits with them. She soldiers on for a number of years before she finally has had enough and decides--after being already ignored by management when she complains--to quit and bring a class action suit against the company,fully aware that she is almost alone in this pursuit,save the somewhat reluctant help of a local lawyer and former hometown sports hero(Woody Harrelson).

I wavered on what rating to give this show for these reasons: the acting and visual direction of this film IS,I must confess,quite good. Credit practically the entire cast for the former,and director Niki Caro and cinematography of Chris Menges for the latter,but the overall tone of this movie is 1)very familiar stuff tot the point of reeking of "TV Movie" material, 2)manipulative by a mile, 3)hits on each emotional note--from the sort of "Girl POwer" quiet assertions of the film's script to the overt nastiness displayed by nearly all of the males working the mines--almost in a perfect cue; 4)the fictionalizing the stories,then mixing the time-lines from the actual case the movie and the book it was based on (namely,Jenson v. Eleveth Mines,filed in 1984,settled in 1998;whereas the film is set in 1989 and almost instantly flips to Septemeber 1991,circa the Anita Hill/Clarence THomas hearings,with the events-to-case trial time relationship murky at best);and 5)the sort of "feel good" third act denouement where the town,once boorishly stubborn against the idea of women working in the mines to being stirred by Ms.Aimes' case. An extra storyline of Aimes being raped in school and thus affecting,at least partly,her condition as being a troubled single mom who has a murky knowledge(or lack thereof)of the paternity of her equally troubled son is probably the most emotionally authentic storyline in this movie,but it feels mixed in for purely embellishment sake in this story,thus calling into question just how much this movie truly represented the true events being retold.

A famous saying says what good intentions pave the way to,but I think in this case good intentions pave the construction of a film that is underwhelming and somewhat disappointing. The story of the Eleveth mine workers and the discrimination case they eventually won absolutely deserve3s being retold,but this movie seems to be only interested in invoking it,then crafting an artificial story to frame it,as if for fear that audiences WOULDN'T get this story in the raw. On it's own,this movie's story works enough to interest most viewers,myself included, and the sincerity behind it is true I'm sure. But this film's over-familiarity and manipulation dilute the potency of the message. More entertainment than enlightenment,it's intentions are good but tough to take to heart. WAtch it for the performances,and one should feel better about it,at least marginally.

Josey Aimes (Charlize Theron) leaves her abusive husband and returns to her hometown in Northern Minnesota. After a prompt from her old friend Glory (Frances McDormand), Josey now a single mother with two children to support, seeks employment at the town iron mine plant. Predominantly employing men, Josey is expecting the work to be hard and gruelling, what she wasn't expecting tho is the mental and sexual harassment that the women and herself are expected to tolerate. Finally having enough, she starts to speak out about her treatment, but she finds that there are few allies both at work and at home. Her career, her life and her family are all sure to be affected as things reach breaking point.

North Country is inspired by the 2002 book Class Action: The Story of Lois Jenson, which details the landmark case of Jenson V Eveleth Taconite Company that changed the sexual harassment law.

There is always a danger in film land that serious, based on facts topics get too much of a Hollywood sheen. So shall it be with Niki Caro's (Whale Rider) interpretation of this most important part of American law. The impact is there, very much so, but in the need to keep the audience on board, one feels they are being force fed drama when really none was needed. Having a beauty like Charlize Theron playing your lead hardly helps cast off the glossy feel of the production. "Rightly" nominated for Best Actress (she has gusto in abundance), Theron is however miscast as regards the nature of the piece, her aura and star bank-ability his hard to ignore during the more dramatic moments. As the New York Times review noted on its release, "it's a star vehicle with heart," and it's impossible to argue with that astute summary.

Still there is much to enjoy here. In amongst the annoying contrivances put our way to further the emotional aspects, there beats a serious and dramatic heart. Coupled with a more than competently handled court case finale, and aided by McDormand's highly effective performance, North Country makes its valid point in spite of its obvious problems. Though the film didn't make back its budget of $30 million, it got people talking about the topic at its core. Putting the revolting issue of sexual harassment back in the public conscious can never be a bad thing, so with that, North Country achieved its aims. If it's as impacting as its cousins, Norma Rae, Silkwood and Erin Brockovich is debatable, but it is potent and it is acted with aplomb from its principals. It's just regrettable that one can't quite shake off knowing it's all a bit too glossy for its own good. 7/10

North Country fmovies. In the iron mines of Northern Minnesota, circa 1989, a young woman (a single mother of two with a shady-lady past) goes to work as a miner and encounters personally degrading harassment from the mostly male crew. A compassionate and sensitive rewriting of a true incident--one that took some ten years to resolve in the courts--but possibly overcrowded with too much melodramatic content. Supporting characters--like Frances McDormand's dump truck driver--do not get enough quality screen-time to completely validate the time which they do have. The over-emotional finale is also questionable (were these filmmakers ever in a courtroom before?), but it does provide the audience with the release it needs. In the lead, Charlize Theron gives a finely-wrought, gripping performance; she shows her guts, fear, and bravery, but I'm not sure how convincing she is as mother to an older teenage boy (it seems a little soon for Theron, and the same can be said for Sissy Spacek as the proverbial salt-of-the-earth grandmother). Does the film show all sides and give both the men and the women a fair shake? Probably not, but it's not a man-hater movie either, and since it's told from the female protagonist's point of view, her endurance against certain men is the focal point here. Ultimately, the movie is about her courage, her strength in standing up for herself, and this is expressed here extremely well. *** from ****

Dramatic license is certainly forgivable but this film would have been much more effective if not for the beyond-Perry-Mason touches in the courtroom where the plaintiff's case is rescued at the 11th hour and 59th minute by antics that wouldn't pass muster in any courtroom in America, unless the defendant's attorney (Linda Emond) was utterly incompetent and the judge was a blithering idiot. Surely it should have been possible for a competent script writer to bring the drama to its conclusion in a more believable way. The manifest absurdity of the last 15 minutes of the movie undermined (for me) what was otherwise another excellent performance by Charlize Theron and the usual outstanding work of Frances McDormand. For those who haven't seen her on the stage, this may have been the first time most movie goers will have encountered Linda Emond, who plays the defense attorney. She is a gifted actress who deserves better than being asked to stand by like a cigar store Indian while the plaintiff's attorney (Woody Harrelson) commits every procedural violation that could possibly be conceived. Don't blame Harrelson, however. The one-time goofy bartender of "Cheers" actually does very well in the scenes outside the courtroom. Frankly, I wish this film had stuck more closely to the facts and avoided the phony fireworks at the end.

I hate to give North Country a relatively low vote because this is such an important issue, and I appreciate the good intentions of director Niki Caro, and the A-list actors who no doubt took a big pay cut when agreeing to take a role.

On the other hand, I feel disappointed, a little angry, as well as insulted as a woman that this hugely important story was made into a melodrama that flattens out what really happened, and somehow manages to diminish the political nature of sexual harassment, even while seeming to highlight it.

At least 90 percent of the problem had to do with Michael Seitzman's script.

In the interview with Seitzman on the DVD, he makes clear that he didn't think the sexual harassment story was the real story. The real story, he said, was the traumatic experience Josie had in high school, and her relationship with her son.

Therefore he should have written a script for Lifetime focusing on what he felt was the "real story". He should not have used one of the most important cases for sexual harassment in legal history as the vehicle for telling this other story.

The producers should have demanded a script that more closely resembled Susannah Grant's Erin Brockovich. The sequence of victimization after victimization depicted in North Country didn't let us get to know Josie's character in any depth. We saw her slammed against the wall again and again, from beginning to end. We see that she stands up against the oppression, but we aren't taken into her sensibility, her choices, her process, her blind spots, character change, etc, etc, like in EB. Likewise, the lack of complexity in the male "macho" characters also flattens the story, and takes away from the real difficulties in challenging sexism and sexual harassment. In real life, character complexity of those who oppress or who defend oppressors is part of what makes the problem of sexual harassment difficult to fight.

I read an interview with Niki Caro, and though I think she's a very talented director, I got the sense that she didn't really get the politics or history behind sexual harassment. It seems things aren't as bad in New Zealand as they are here in the U.S. This is a foreign culture to her, and Northern Minnesota is certainly a foreign culture. I wish she would have spent more time fully understanding the issues and cultural dynamics (including the accent and mannerisms of the area, etc, which were sprinkled into the movie, but not rigorously replicated) before undertaking the project. If she had gone the extra mile to immerse herself in the issue and the region, perhaps she would have demanded a total rewrite of the script.