North Country

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.

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.

NOTRH COUNTRY is stark proof that truth is stranger than fiction!

BUT FIRST... Let us FOCUS on the Title´s Content and Context:

The Director, New-Zealander Niki Caro (Whale Rider), perhaps a very apt directorial choice, being a woman, yet at the same time, precisely not being American! In the mines of Minnesota in 1989, only 3% of the workers are women. There is a whole confluence of constantly orchestrated pressure applied against all female miners intended to get them to resign.

Charlize Theron (Who won the Oscar for best actress in MONSTER in the role of the only female serial-killer in U. S. history, Florida's Aileen Wuornos) as expected, is absolutely magnificent as Josey Aimes, a woman whose only motivation is wanting to provide a better life for her two children. The fight is quite a tough one for Josey. At first, everyone seems clearly to be set against her. Neither her friends, nor his parents, not even her own children give her their support! But Josey is a very stubborn human being who does not permit anything or anyone to discourage her.

Gradually, her unshakeable character, her unparalleled courage and the enormity of the injustice committed against her finally begin working in her favor.

NORTH COUNTRY at times does exhibit some rather lethargic moments, but the cast and the quality of the story are so outstanding that is easy to overlook this minor flaw!

Frances McDormand (1996 Oscar winner for FARGO) also shines in the multifaceted role of best friend; coworker, representing women's interests among union workers and victim of one of the worst evils occasionally affecting mine workers: Lung Cancer! Woody Harrelson (Natural Born Killers) is convincing as the ex-football player town hero turned lawyer who takes on Josey's case. Sissy Spacek (Carrie: original version) as the dutiful Mom and Richard Jenkins (Six Feet Under) as the skeptical dad.

Almost everyone who works or has worked recently in the United States knows that the problem of sexual harassment in the workplace is something that is taken extremely seriously. This is thanks, in large part, to Josey Aimes, and the struggle she was forced to wage against that Minnesota mining company 30 years ago! It is really worth traveling to NORTH COUNTRY to see both Charlize Theron's and Frances McDormand's Oscar Nomination performances!

...ENJOY! / DISFRUTELA!

Any Comments, Questions or Observations.... in ENGLISH... o en ESPAÑOL... are most Welcome!

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