North Country Review

October 26, 2005 10:26 AM
by [email]

Director Niki Caro follows the lyrical and moving “Whale Rider” with the truth-inspired story of one brave miner’s fight against sexual harassment. Add three Oscar winning actresses, a terminal illness, and a triumphant finale likely to wring tears from the most cynical of moviegoers, and the New Zealand native has fashioned a foolproof formula for Oscar nods.

Based on Clara Bingham and Laura Leedy’s book “Class Action: The Story of Lois Jensen and the Landmark Case That Changed Sexual Harassment Law,” “North Country” is set in a small late eighties town where jobs are scarce and a mining salary is six times minimum wage. Shuttling from one abusive situation to another, Josey Aimes (Charlize Theron) leaves her violent husband and moves her teenage son (Thomas Curtis) and young daughter (Elle Peterson) to her parents’ Minnesota home.

A job as a hair washer doesn’t lead to financial independence, but a run-in with old friend Glory (Frances McDormand) does. Glory has been working in Minnesota’s male dominated iron mines for years, and, according to her husband (Sean Bean), she’s “kept her head above the fray” and managed to take catcalls and crude jokes with a grain of salt.

Against the wishes of her miner father (Richard Jenkins) and sympathetic mother (Sissy Spacek), Josey signs on to work in the mines. But what she finds goes beyond backbreaking labor and lung-clogging soot. The workplace is a virtual cesspool of harassment, much of which is aimed at 19-year-old Sherry (Michelle Monoghan).

Lawyer Bill White (Woody Harrelson) is introduced as a potential love interest for Josey, but Caro and screenwriter Michael Seitzman (stepping up from “Here on Earth”) are more practical.

Abuse steadily progresses from semen in the women’s lockers to physical attacks, and Bill is privy to Josey’s first bout of humiliation when the wife of a sleezy co-worker accuses Josey of promiscuity in front of her son’s entire hokey team.

“I just want to go to work and not worry about being raped,” Josey tells her father, who responds with typically hostile silence. Not only does the bigoted mine owner, Mr. Pearson, not believe Josey’s accusations, he threatens to fire her when she confronts him.

And when Josey asks Bill to take her unlikely case to court, Pearson hires hard-hitting female lawyer Leslie Conlin (fantastic theater actress Linda Emond), whose polished, smarmy style reminds Josey- and the audience- how little sheltered people understand.

“North Country” doesn’t feel like a history lesson, and Theron’s determined Josey doesn’t come off as a talking head, but to get to the remarkably riveting ending, first you need to wade through several plot holes and more characters than Seitzman knows what to do with.

Josey’s father’s instantaneous shift from sexist to supportive is particularly hard to swallow (Lois Jensen, one of the women Josey is based on, fought for twenty five years to win a class action lawsuit).

Caro tries several narrative techniques with varying success. While flashbacks to Josey’s teenage years are well incorporated and effective, early shifts from Josey’s move to Minnesota to the trial are as confusing as this sentence (just see the film and you’ll know what I mean).

Josey is a composite character, but there’s nothing composite about Theron’s masterful performance. Some of the most powerful moments involve Josey’s simple interactions with her children, and Theron shifts from infectious joy to absolute fury so honestly it’s impossible not to feel everything she does.

Some scenes in “North Country” made me so mad I had to stop myself from shouting at the screen.

She’s supported by some of the best actors on the big screen. Spacek is wonderful as her conservative but well-meaning mom, and Jenkins lends her father understated rage and grace.

Harrelson and Bean don’t have much to do, but their performances are impeccable. The real standouts are McDormand and Monoghan, who play their respective roles with unique subtlety. Richard Hoover’s production design and Chris Menges’ cinematography perfectly capture the bleakness of Minnesota life.

Though occasionally formulaic, “North Country” is ultimately an inspiring story of stubborn determination, and a truly scary examination of condoned sexual harassment less than two decades ago.

Grade: A-
(I know I’ve given this grade to almost everything, but the fall line up of films has been so atypically good I’m actually aching to write a bad review).