North Country

With one performance - as real-life serial killer Aileen Wuornos in 2003's MONSTER - drop-dead gorgeous actress Charlize Theron quieted naysayers like myself and proved beyond any doubt that she was more than just another Hollywood bombshell. Simply put, Theron became Wuornos, disappearing into that woman's tortured psyche on a level far transcending the physical (the actress famously gained 30 lbs and wore extensive makeup to perfect Wuornos' look). For her efforts, she garnered industry respect and a richly deserved Best Actress Oscar, freeing her from the pretty-girl supporting roles that fill up her resume. Her two latest roles speak to that recent elevation in status: leads in the futuristic actioner AEON FLUX (due in December in North America) and the earnest drama NORTH COUNTRY.

In NORTH COUNTRY, director Niki Caro's first project since gaining accolades for helming the magical WHALE RIDER, Theron once again shuts off the glam as single mother Josie Aimes. Having recently left her abusive boyfriend, the penniless Aimes finds herself back at home with her parents, where her disdainful father suggests that she was at fault for the abuse while her mother quietly looks on. The Minnesota resident believes she's finally hit the jackpot when she lands a high-paying job at the Mesabi Iron Range strip mine (the same place her dad works), but things quickly go sour. As one of the very few women employed there, she finds herself the victim of rampant sexual harassment that takes on increasingly degrading and frightening forms. While all the female employees there feel the brunt of the men's derision, it is Aimes - and her steadfast refusal to simply grin and bear it - that becomes the focal point of their abuse, and despite the complete lack of support from the other women at the mine, her family or anybody in the community, she resolves to make her employer legally accountable for the deplorable treatment of its female workers, thereby initiating the first lawsuit of its kind at the time of the movie's setting in the late 80's.

Let's start with what's right with the film. Its impeccable cast - featuring the likes of Woody Harrelson, Sissy Spacek, and Frances McDormand (who also joins Theron in AEON FLUX) - never falters. This is especially true of Theron, utterly convincing as the beleaguered single mother who must dig deep within herself to find the strength to keep fighting when not a single person is willing to join her crusade. Here is a woman who has been let known by every man in her life in some way (even her adolescent son distances himself from her amidst the taunting he receives from schoolmates), yet she manages not to hate the entire gender, even appealing to a local lawyer, Bill White (Woody Harrelson), to take on her case. Her chosen path is a very lonely one indeed, but she soldiers on because she knows her fight is a righteous one. As such, the tale being told is undeniably an important one. Although it's a fictitious story based on a real person (Lois Jenson, the first woman to file a class action lawsuit for sexual harassment in the U.S.), it serves as a stark reminder that the days of sexual harassment in the workplace are not as far behind us as we'd like to think; Jenson's lawsuit was only settled in 1991 (and let's be honest - sexual harassment still exists in some form or other).

While there is no denying the relevance of this story, I can't help but wish that its telling had been done less predictably. There are few surprises in store here. The cards are stacked so high against her - her family's disapproval, her co-workers' refusal to stand up against their oppressors, the lawyer's reluctance to take a precedent-setting case (a man she finds herself romantically involved with, unsurprisingly) - that it's impossible for her not to triumph in the end and have each of those obstacles fall by the wayside. The film also features one of those of climactic court scenes where things go from bad to worse until the judge decides to bend the rules and the tide 'miraculously' begins to turn. Frankly, the story is on par with a TV movie-of-the-week, which is especially disappointing given director Caro's wonderful work on WHALE RIDER. As in NORTH COUNTRY, her previous film centered on a woman - a twelve-year-old girl, actually - struggling against the men in her life who refuse to see her as an equal. She led its star, Keisha Castle-Hughes to an Oscar nomination (the year Theron won for MONSTER, oddly enough), and she will likely help Theron bag her second nomination for her fine performance here. The film itself, however, fails to break from convention in the way ERIN BROKAVICH did so refreshingly a few years ago. NORTH COUNTRY is not a bad film by any means. In terms of its relevant subject matter, it's even an inspiring one at times. It simply isn't a very exceptional one.