After receiving a savage beating from her husband, Josey Aimes
(Charlize Theron) has had enough. She takes her two children and leaves him for
good. Moving back in with her parents in Northern Minnesota, Josey is scrounging
a meager living washing hair at a salon when she meets Glory (Frances McDormand)
an old friend of hers who’s now working at the local iron mine as a truck driver.
Glory tells her that the mine, which had once been a predominantly male job, is
now hiring women. Desperate for a well-paying job, Josey signs up with the mine,
along with several other women, where she immediately earns six times more than
what she was making at the salon.
Yet on the very first day, while she and the other new women are being shown
around the plant by the manager, Josey encounters harassment when one of the
male workers--who passes them by in the hallway--utters a degrading remark at
the women under his breath. As she starts working at the mine, cleaning out a
storage area known as the powder room, the harassment--both physical and
sexual--grows even worse. The feeling among some of the workers, and even some
of the townspeople, is that these women "stole" their jobs in the mine from the
"real" workers: namely men. Josey tries to tough it out, until a devastating
incident with a male worker forces her to quit. Yet Josey hasn’t given up. She
sues the mine, and winds up making history in the process.
Based on a true story, the Jenson vs. Eveleth Mines case, which was the first
successful sexual harassment case in the United States, North Country is a superb
film by director Niki Caro--at least up to a point. In order to explain the
fault in the film, I would have to divulge the ending, so let’s just say that
after two hours of a somber and gripping narrative, it was a major let down to
see the extremely sappy moment that occurs at the end in the courtroom. It was
unrealistic, and disrupts and otherwise great film. Yet the main reason to see North
Country is Charlize Theron. She gives a wonderful, convincing performance that,
unlike the movie, never rings false. The rest of the cast is filled with other
magnificent actors such as Frances McDormand, Sissy Spacek, Sean Bean, Richard
Jenkins, and Woody Harrelson. The special features on the DVD are pretty slight:
just a making of documentary with no commentary, but the film itself--with its
marvelous performances by its talented cast--is well worth a look.
--SF
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