Tierra fría

This is the kind of drama that breaks your heart over and over again without a moment to recover. It's NOT an easy film to watch. But that's what makes North Country so extraordinary. Charlize Theron plays Josey Aimes, a young mother who leaves her abusive husband and returns to her hometown to start a new life and support herself and her two kids. Almost immediately, we learn that this is a woman who has been judged, criticized, and ostracized and called a "whore" ever since she became pregnant in high school. Josey takes a job at the local mine because it's the best paying job she can find, and she's determined to give her kids a comfortable life. She and her female co-workers are reminded every day how unwanted and unwelcome they are at the mine. They are physically, verbally, mentally, and sexually abused on a daily basis. After being physically attacked and threatened, Josey quits and starts to fight back by suing the company for sexual harassment.

I was finally pushed over the "tears threshold" when Josey's dad stands up at the miners' union meeting and defends his daughter for the first time in her life. After that, I was sobbing on and off for the entire duration of the film. While the entire cast is perfect, I believe the Best Supporting Actress Nomination must go to Frances McDormand who injects some much-needed comic relief into this bleak-but-brave story. Movies about rape and abuse are never easy to watch, but North Country is such an important story to hear. We as women need to be reminded that women before us suffered and fought for what we take for granted today.

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.

Set in the late 1980s comes the story of Josey Aimes, a small-towner and single mother of two with a sordid past that she's tried for years to put behind her. Living with her parents and wanting to make things better for herself and her children, she takes a job at a thriving Minnesota iron mine where only a handful of women work under constant oppression and harassment from their lascivious male co-workers. Despite her degrading reputation, the possible consequences, and a working staff that seems unwilling to help, she files a lawsuit determined to reclaim her dignity and bridge the gender gap. Although well-crafted, acted, and based on true events, this oddly never convinces; the plotting and characters are set up far too easily, and the intended dramatic climax doesn't pack any punch. Theron is quite good, so is Jenkins as her stern, conflicted dad, surrounded by a capable cast, but the story fails to rise above the level of convention. **½

In the iron mines of Northern Minnesota circa 1989, 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 10 years to resolve in the courts--but possibly overcrowded with too much melodramatic content. Supporting characters (like Frances McDormand's dump truck driver and Sissy Spacek's salt-of-the-earth mama) do not get enough quality screen-time to completely validate the time which they do have. The overripe finale is also questionable (were these filmmakers ever in a courtroom before?), though it does provide the audience with the emotional 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). Does the film show all sides and give both the men and the women a fair shake? Probably not, but it's surprisingly not a man-haters movie, either. Told from the female protagonist's point of view, the emphasis is on her endurance against a certain group of men, taking a stand and speaking up for herself. It's inspiring, if a little corny. **1/2 from ****

This is an important film about more than just Sexual harassment. It is more than a movie about Women. This movie deals with true courage. About the possibility just one person can accomplish!!! It's about taking a stand, and knowing right from wrong!!

This movie was very tastefully done. It features a A list cast. With A list acting. It tackles a very important and very necessary message.

I'm rather puzzled with some of the reviews. However, to each their own.

I found the movie was well acted and well done.

I also found the ending to be perfect!!!