Through four-fifths of North Country, the audience receives a rare treat. It's a film that deals with a serious issue, sexual harassment, in a serious way. It is a compelling drama that is well shot, directed and acted. It is nothing short of tragic then, that the last fifth of the film is some of the worst put to screen this year. Screenwriter Michael Seitzman is no stranger to vastly overblown, yet flat, melodrama. One can see his Here on Earth for a sample of how ridiculous his conception of human interaction is. Yet how is it that most of the film is not only watchable, but truly exceptional, when the ending was so terrible? The answer probably has more than a little to do with director Niki Caro. In 2002's Whale Rider Caro guided another spectacular story about a woman who challenges the gender roles of her community. It was a beautiful and engaging tale and North Country starts out the same way.
Presenting a fictional account of the nonfiction book Class Action: The Story of Lois Jensen and the Landmark Case that Changed Sexual Harassment Law, North Country begins on the stand with Josey Aimes (Charlize Theron) being grilled about her sex life. The film then goes back to Aimes' hiring at the mine and the problems she and the other female workers faced there. The harassment was pervasive. It wasn't just catcalls and sexist utterances, though it was those. It was in many cases more or less sexual assault. When Josey felt able to complain about it, she could do so in the Human Resources office, with a pinup calendar staring back at her. It was the type of openly hostile workplace that really makes you wonder, as Josey's dad (Richard Jenkins) does, how is it that so many men can behave so badly? They wouldn't act towards women the same way at a company picnic so why do they do it at work?
Josey's struggle is not made easier by most of her female coworkers. They need the high- paying mine jobs as much as she does and the repercussions for speaking out have been well-illustrated. Unemployment and hungry families are not welcome ideas when there is no reason to believe your complaints will be acted upon. Or at least, acted upon positively. Josey is subjected to degrading and brutal reprisals as are some of the other women despite having not complained themselves. Particularly disgusting, though it's hard to pick out the worst from so many choices, is an instance where Sherry (Michelle Monaghan) finds semen in her locker.
Josey finally gets to court only to have her sex life put on trial. That this is done is no surprise. In the actual case Jensen vs. Eveleth Taconite the women were subjected to detailed examinations of their personal lives after a judge granted the company's lawyers access to their medical records. Where the film begins to falter is when it tries to defend Josey's sex life. Josey's sex life is not the point and never was. By focusing on that it focuses less on how she and her coworkers were routinely terrorized at work. Though her lawyer Bill White (Woody Harrelson) does an adequate job in rebutting arguments, the arguments are ones that need not be addressed. All the court scenes deal with only this.
The struggles of Aimes are based largely on the events of Lois Jensen's Job-like struggle. Where the film fails though, is by trying to rearrange them neatly and add "Oscar moments". Many of the actions, even the ones that seem over the top, actually did happen. But they didn't happen like they do in North Country. Particularly regrettable are a courtroom confrontation between White and Bobby Sharpe (Jeremy Renner) and a surrogate father-son talk between Kyle (Sean Bean) and Sammy (Thomas Curtis). The awful Hollywood legalisms and almost absurdist melodramatic conclusion is a tremendous letdown after a great start and middle. It's worth noting that the missteps happen where the film strays farthest from the true story, the Michael Seitzman coming through maybe. That's not to say that it isn't worth seeing or that is doesn't have brilliant moments, such as Sissy Spacek's one woman wife-strike, it's just that a halfway decent ending would have made this one of the year's best films. Instead it abandons an important and well done story for the sake of, what? Oh well, at least it was better than Disclosure.
Presenting a fictional account of the nonfiction book Class Action: The Story of Lois Jensen and the Landmark Case that Changed Sexual Harassment Law, North Country begins on the stand with Josey Aimes (Charlize Theron) being grilled about her sex life. The film then goes back to Aimes' hiring at the mine and the problems she and the other female workers faced there. The harassment was pervasive. It wasn't just catcalls and sexist utterances, though it was those. It was in many cases more or less sexual assault. When Josey felt able to complain about it, she could do so in the Human Resources office, with a pinup calendar staring back at her. It was the type of openly hostile workplace that really makes you wonder, as Josey's dad (Richard Jenkins) does, how is it that so many men can behave so badly? They wouldn't act towards women the same way at a company picnic so why do they do it at work?
Josey's struggle is not made easier by most of her female coworkers. They need the high- paying mine jobs as much as she does and the repercussions for speaking out have been well-illustrated. Unemployment and hungry families are not welcome ideas when there is no reason to believe your complaints will be acted upon. Or at least, acted upon positively. Josey is subjected to degrading and brutal reprisals as are some of the other women despite having not complained themselves. Particularly disgusting, though it's hard to pick out the worst from so many choices, is an instance where Sherry (Michelle Monaghan) finds semen in her locker.
Josey finally gets to court only to have her sex life put on trial. That this is done is no surprise. In the actual case Jensen vs. Eveleth Taconite the women were subjected to detailed examinations of their personal lives after a judge granted the company's lawyers access to their medical records. Where the film begins to falter is when it tries to defend Josey's sex life. Josey's sex life is not the point and never was. By focusing on that it focuses less on how she and her coworkers were routinely terrorized at work. Though her lawyer Bill White (Woody Harrelson) does an adequate job in rebutting arguments, the arguments are ones that need not be addressed. All the court scenes deal with only this.
The struggles of Aimes are based largely on the events of Lois Jensen's Job-like struggle. Where the film fails though, is by trying to rearrange them neatly and add "Oscar moments". Many of the actions, even the ones that seem over the top, actually did happen. But they didn't happen like they do in North Country. Particularly regrettable are a courtroom confrontation between White and Bobby Sharpe (Jeremy Renner) and a surrogate father-son talk between Kyle (Sean Bean) and Sammy (Thomas Curtis). The awful Hollywood legalisms and almost absurdist melodramatic conclusion is a tremendous letdown after a great start and middle. It's worth noting that the missteps happen where the film strays farthest from the true story, the Michael Seitzman coming through maybe. That's not to say that it isn't worth seeing or that is doesn't have brilliant moments, such as Sissy Spacek's one woman wife-strike, it's just that a halfway decent ending would have made this one of the year's best films. Instead it abandons an important and well done story for the sake of, what? Oh well, at least it was better than Disclosure.