North Country

"What do you do when the ones with all the power are hurting those with none?"

What do you do when you're a nobody and you win an Oscar and you're suddenly famous? Well, you make another Oscar-baiting film to prove that you're worthy of the prize you just won. This is what Charlize Theron did not too long after winning the Best Actress Oscar for Monster, driving this based-on-a-true-story vehicle about working class civil rights and delivering the kind of emotive and button-pushing performance needed to incite the audience's sympathetic anger. It's hard to tell just how much of this story is really true, I suspect that some elements of it have been tweaked in the interest of making a 'good' film, and I guess at the end of the day authenticity only matters if this is the only criteria on which you're judging the film. The simple fact of the matter is that it tells of a great injustice that did happen, and whatever button-pushing has been used to get the audience on side is probably vindicated by a need to tell these kinds of stories and to ensure such injustice is named and shamed. In short, as far as companies like Eveleth Taconite go: screw these guys.

Theron plays Josey, a single mother seeking a second chance at life and trying to make something of herself. She moves back to her home town in Minesota and throws herself into the family tradition: working for the town's mining company. Recent sexual equality laws have opened up the company for female employees, something that the company and its workforce accepts only begrudgingly. Once Josie and her female co-workers are hired they find themselves subject to systemic discrimination and harassment. Furthermore, the higher echelons are deaf to any complaints and Josie soon finds herself ousted from the company for 'causing trouble' when she decides to push the issue, and this leads to ostracisation in the wider community.

There aren't a great deal of films that actively deal with working class 'work life', and those that do (Silkwood, Norma Rae) inevitably deal with inequality in the work place or conspiracies. North Country is not really any different to these films - it's largely based on a landmark 1988 court case that changed workplace policy and practices forever (the first sexual harrassment class action that brought the hidden world of industrial power relations into the open). A big part of North Country's appeal is the left-wing political subtext that it willingly embraces - from the film's poster, which markets the film like a piece of optimistic socialist propaganda, to the use of Bob Dylan songs in the soundtrack, suggesting a direct kinship to the civil rights movement of the '60s. It's not all beer and skittles though, another part of the film's strength is that it also shines a light on the true nature of unionism and elitism in tight-knit working class communities - it's the sort of thing that usually gets lionised in pop culture, but North Country gets to the ugly truth and demonstrates that these arenas aren't always pretty.

The cast is exceptional too, here's my thoughts on the principle players:

• Charlize Theron is believable with her working class mullet, and doesn't overdo it.
• Jeremy Renner is suitably despicable and cocky, foreshadowing his work in films like The Hurt Locker and The Town.
• Frances McDormand is good and understated in what could've been a really over-the-top role.
• Sissy Spacek's role is quite small but she suits her character to a T and even uses the Minesota accent.
• Richard Jenkins is great in the disgruntled father role. He really pushes it but this is also the key to him providing one of the film's biggest emotional moments.
• Sean Bean turns up in an important role, and is good value as always. It's weird to hear him without his usual accent.
• Also look out for Woody Harrelson in a large-ish but rather thankless role. This film is the beginning of Woody's renaissance as a celebrated character actor (carried on through films like A Scanner Darkly, Defendor, Zombieland).
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I really enjoyed this film a lot, it's the kind of bread-and-butter tale of injustice that I just can't help but get swept up in. I've always been a sucker for films like this, and North Country is a film about bigotry and assumption that's very much in the tradition of In The Name of The Father or A Time To Kill, two films that have always been able to really suck me in. I felt like some aspects of North Country (such as the rape subplot) were a step or two away from the truth of the real court case... I can't be sure, but some of these story elements may have been included to tweak audience sympathy even further. I didn't really mind. The film takes a structure that uses the court case as a framing device for the narrative... I wasn't a fan of this at first, as it starts without a context and the reasons for the court case and its tone don't really become clear until much later on. But who am I to argue when the last half hour is such a gutting and emotionally overwhelming tour-de-force? Everything falls into place and it hit me in a big way. I know it's all constructed to get this sort of reaction out of me, but I like having this reaction to a film - it's passionate, and I don't mind being manipulated in that kind of way, so I guess it depends on your personal taste or what kind of viewer you are.

DIRECTOR: Niki Caro
WRITER/SOURCE: Screenplay by Michael Seitzman, based on a non-fiction book that chronicled the case of Jenson vs. Eveleth Taconite Company.
KEY ACTORS: Charlize Theron, Thomas Curtis, Frances McDormand, Richard Jenkins, Jeremy Renner, Woody Harrelson, Michelle Monaghan, Sean Bean, Sissy Spacek, Rusty Schwimmer, Amber Heard

RELATED TEXTS
- The non-fiction book Class Action by Clara Bingham and Laura Leedy Gansler.
- Hostile Advances is a 1996 telemovie that's also based on a landmark case about sexual harrassment.
- Director Niki Caro previously made the critically acclaimed Whale Rider.
- Other films about unionism, whistle-blowing and the working class: Silkwood, Norma Rae, The Angry Silence, Blue Collar, Michael Clayton, The Insider, Made in Dagenham, Billy Elliot, Bread and Roses, F.I.S.T., On the Waterfront and Man of Iron.
- See also Erin Brockavich and The Accused, which also focus on court cases and injustice.

AWARDS
Academy Awards - nominated for Best Actress (Charlize Theron) and Best Supporting Actress (Frances McDormand).
BAFTAs - nominated for Best Actress (Theron) and Best Supporting Actress (McDormand).
Golden Globes - nominated for Best Actress - Drama (Theron) and Best Supporting Actress (McDormand).