NateWatchesCoolMovies Charlize Theron has never been one to shy away from the painful, tortured realities of living a human life. She often goes out of her way to pick roles that cause her to express wounded characters, and then have salt rubbed in those wounds by the frank, unflinching nature of the film. North Country is a perfect example of this. She's a battered angel as Josey Aimes, a low income mother on the run from an abusive ex, back to her hometown. She finds herself needing a job, and when an old friend (Frances Mcdormand) recommends the local iron mines where she works, with the same pay and equal benefits that most of the men in town have, she takes the job. She soon realizes that women who go for that line of work are subjected to nasty bouts of sexual harassment and bullying behaviour on a daily basis by almost all of their coworkers. Jeremy Renner plays one of the offenders with appropriate sleaze, who also has ties to Josey's unfortunate past. It's tough for her and her female coworkers to be taken seriously, however, as most of the town either turns a deliberate blind eye or is so desensitized by this kind of thing which has become commonplace, that no one bats an eye. Xander Berkley is a great example, playing a casually sexist asshole of a supervisor. Josey and a vulnerable co worker (Michelle Monaghan, excellent) eventually reach the end of their ropes, and decide, against all advice, to file a lawsuit against the corporation. They are met with belligerence, indifference, cynicism and nastiness almost everywhere they turn. Mcdormand's character suffers the onset of ALS and can be of limited help to them. Sean Bean plays her introverted husband very well, stealing his scenes. Josey turns to an ex hotshot lawyer (Woody Harrelson), who reluctantly takes on the David and Goliath case she tries to present. She tragically bites off more than she can chew, however, when agonizing details from her past are brought into light as a result of the trial, providing riveting character beats for her and various other actors to live in. Sissy Spacek is warm and loving as her mother, Corey Stoll is great in an extended cameo, and there's good work from Chris Mulkey, Amber Heard, Brad William Henke, Rusty Schwimmer and more. Richard Jenkins, a criminally underrated actor, scores full points with his character arc as Josey's father, a hard bitten guy who's third act meltdown after learning the truth about his daughter's past will leave you choking back tears. It's Theron who anchors it though, her chilly, inaccessible face a twisted mask of the pain lurking behind, reflected in the eyes of everyone she interacts with. The film makes it searingly clear that trauma inflicted upon someone, no matter how many years ago, has the power to both hinder them in their future endeavours, as well make them stronger to help deal with whatever painful curveball life tosses them next. Theron conveys both these layered aspects and much more with her work, proving once again that she's an actress who can bring us to our knees time and time again with her skill.

tbills2 North Country is a fictionalized account of the landmark, first in The United States, class-action sexual harassment lawsuit, Lois E. Jenson vs. Eveleth Taconite Co., filed in 1988 on the behalf of Lois Jenson of her employment at EVTAC Mine in Eveleth, Minnesota, and it's not all respectable to the real true story. It misses the heart of the matter. The occurrences of sexual harassment in North Country are roughly diminished by having way more grunting and hollering from the male miners than it has appropriately depicted sentiment towards the severity of the female miners' horrendous accusations. All inaccuracies aside, North Country is far too politely shown, to say the least. It's insulting how badly North Country loafs around the real hard issues. North Country carries a very strong camera, but it focuses on the all the trite stuff. The movie spends too much time on the family without any real intrigue and not nearly enough time on what happens at the mine workplace. This movie should have been easily great with any bit dosage of honorable movie-making. The message of the story is lost. The great acting is wasted, as is the writing. The sexual assault scenes are held in such poor suspense, like, we know they're going to happen, can we not dwell so much on them? North Country is atrociously ostentatious. I'm obviously critiquing the movie harshly because of its real life implications, but standing up as a fateful fable, North Country is good, though it had such a unperturbed pathway to greatness.

katinka1969 Overall I found that this film was a bit too Hollywood for my liking, especially the about-turn in the father's regard for his daughter. Plus Charlize Theron, though a terrific actress, looked way too beautiful, luminous, clear-skinned etc. to convincingly play an overwrought mother of two who'd been regularly beaten by her ex-husband.Having said this, I think the reviewers who slam it as being out of date, irrelevant etc. are missing an important point. Films about subjects such as this are in my view essential to remind us of just how far we've come in terms of equality in the workplace and in life generally. The 80s is still a relatively recent decade, which makes it even more horrifying that this type of abuse was at best ignored, at worst encouraged. Add to that the fact that all of the episodes in this film happened in real life, and there were apparently scores of others that could not be included, given the constraints of a two hour film. It is very easy to forget that many of the rights and privileges we enjoy today were hard-won, often by horribly oppressed people who had little more than sheer determination driving them to take on the seemingly untouchable powers-that-be.

g-bodyl This is a good movie, better than I expected it to be. The best part of the movie is most likely the acting. This movie is filled with a stud cast. I loved Theron, Jenkins, Harrelson, and Bean. These four are great actors. The worst part is the script. I have seen children movies written way better. This script is just too corny. But the drama cancels out the ineffectiveness of the script.This movie is basically about women rights. Josey and a bunch of girls work in a Minnesota mine and are mistreated by the male coworkers. This film is about that and the lawsuit that followed.Overall, this is a good movie that excels mightily in the acting department. Everything else is just average. I rate this film 8/10.