You
know
it's tough up there when even Frances McDormand has a hard time.
***image2***
Based on the 1984 sexual harassment class action suit of Jenson v. Eveleth Mines,
North Country
as directed by
Whale Rider
's Niki Caro doesn't whitewash its grim, unfriendly setting: Northern Minnesota, 1981. And while the terrain is aerial and gorgeous (and a good deal of it was shot in Santa Fe), the economic and emotional circumstances are seriously rugged.
Josie Aimes (Charlize Theron) has a boyfriend with a bad temper and two children from two different fathers. After one black eye and split lip too many, she packs up the kids and heads back home, where her parents greet her with somewhat less than prodigal-welcoming ecstasy. Her miner father Hank (the brilliant Richard Jenkins, who's been working hard for 40 years but is just now finding some critical recognition, thanks to
Six Feet Under
) takes a hard look at her bruised, swollen face and then merely grunts, "Did he catch you with another man?" Josie's mom (an equally brilliant Sissy Spacek, reprising her pinched-mouth
In The Bedroom
mother) isn't much more helpful, reminding her daughter that "everyone needs a purpose"-or, in other words, of course he's going to beat the crap out of you when he's unemployed.
Josie's incredulous at all this but otherwise helpless to get herself and her kids back on their feet until she encounters an old friend named Glory (Frances McDormand, who gets to dust off that glorious rounded
Fargo
accent). Glory, full of spit and venom, works in the mines, and encourages Josie likewise to "get her cowboy on" and apply there, where she can make six times what she earns washing hair.
In coveralls and hard hat, Josie rapidly discovers that being a female miner, in a ratio of 1:30 among the men, is kind of like being spritzed with pheromones and told to run in your bra and panties down fraternity row. "Wear ear protection, ladies!" their sexist-cliché of a manager reminds them; but they don't need earplugs so much for the roar of equipment as much as for the muttered coarse epithets. So far from lightening up when Josie complains about the relentless harassment, her pant-hooting male coworkers intensify their malicious behavior to violence-and management thoughtfully offers her a severance package. Sick of being told to shut up and "take it like a man," she calls on local hockey-star-turned-lawyer-turned-barfly (Woody Harrelson doing his best not to be Woody Harrelson, which unfortunately isn't quite good enough) to sue the mine. You can just imagine how popular this makes her with the local union boys.
***image1***At this point, however, the plot turns on us, the script disintegrates and the movie becomes a complete mess, a ludicrous loose collection of scenes. After its final credits roll,
North Country
is merely a decent film when it could have been a great one. Performances from Jenkins, McDormand, Spacek, Theron, Jeremy Renner (
Dahmer
) as Josie's chief tormentor and even quiet, spare Sean Bean are almost enough to make you overlook the fact that you're having A Message crammed down your throat like a burning hot corn dog at the State Fair. But close just doesn't count with Oscar-bid dramas of this kind, especially when they end with goofy, sentimentalized courtroom scenes which would have been preposterous in
Ally McBeal
. Caro has given us a faithful portrait of the small-town mentality, where Jaegermeister shots on a paycheck night and hockey games provide all the fun; but as far as labor history goes, you're better off sticking with superior predecessors:
Norma Rae, Erin Brockovich
and perhaps above all
Silkwood
.
