North Country

About halfway through North Country, I posed this question to myself: What’s the difference between this and a movie on Lifetime Network? That’s important, because if North Country is pretty much the same as some crap on cable, then why spend $8.50 to see it?

The based-on-true-life story sure seems like made-for-TV material. Our protagonist, Josey Aimes (Charlize Theron), gets fed up with her abusive husband and heads back to the northern Minnesota mining country of her childhood. There, she decides to make a life for herself and takes a job at the local mine where her father works. But the male workers at the mine aren’t happy and take out their frustration on Josey and the other women.

The events in Josey’s life are paired with the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Clarence Thomas that first brought attention to sexual harassment in the early 1990s. This touch highlights one of the key differences between North Country and a Lifetime movie. Instead of being happy with a personal drama, director Niki Caro (Whale Rider) presents this as one example of the universal struggle for women’s rights. This is a movie about how women were, and still are, restrained in the workplace by men afraid of losing their positions of dominance.

North Country is an important experience for people who haven’t taken the time to consider this issue. But it isn’t a docudrama. North Country is designed to sell tickets. So it features some of the obligatory root-for-the-underdog sentimentality you see on Lifetime. The worst offenses come in the courtroom scenes. Many of these, which are spliced in and out of the whole movie, seem dreamed up by somebody who has never watched an episode of Law and Order, let alone stepped into a real courtroom to do some research. (SPOILER ALERT) The Climactic Courtroom Scene is especially awful with every character in the movie apparently showing up because they knew it was going to be The Climactic Courtroom Scene (END SPOILER ALERT).

With an all-star cast skilled at playing regular folks, North Country’s acting is light years from made-for-TV fare. No Nancy McKeon (Jo from The Facts of Life) to be found here. Woody Harrelson is great as the hockey-playing lawyer who takes on Josey’s case. It was nice to see him back on the big screen. Sissy Spacek and Richard Jenkins (of Six Feet Under) are very strong as Josey’s parents. And Frances McDormand and Theron will likely receive Oscar nominations for their performances.

The movie’s excellent and non-tearjerker soundtrack, which is loaded with Bob Dylan songs, and its beautifully shot exteriors of the bleak mining region also lift North Country above the made-for-TV fray.