North Country (2005)

Director:

Niki Caro

Writers (WGA):

Michael Seitzman (screenplay)
Clara Bingham (book) ...

Release Date:

21 October 2005 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

All She Wanted Was To Make A Living. Instead She Made History.

Plot:

A fictionalized account of the first major successful sexual harassment case in the United States -- Jenson vs. Eveleth Mines, where a woman who endured a range of abuse while working as a miner filed and won the landmark 1984 lawsuit.

Plot Keywords:

Miner | Mine | Sexual Harassment | Minnesota | Lawsuit

Awards:

Nominated for 2 Oscars. Another 1 win & 11 nominations

Cast

Charlize Theron	...	Josey Aimes
Elle Peterson	...	Karen Aimes
Thomas Curtis	...	Sammy Aimes
Frances McDormand	...	Glory
Sean Bean	...	Kyle
Woody Harrelson	...	Bill White
Jeremy Renner	...	Bobby Sharp
Richard Jenkins	...	Hank Aimes
Sissy Spacek	...	Alice Aimes
James Cada	...	Don Pearson
Rusty Schwimmer	...	Big Betty
Linda Emond	...	Leslie Conlin
Michelle Monaghan	...	Sherry
Brad William Henke	...	Lattavansky
Jillian Armenante	...	Peg

Also Known As:

Class Action (USA) (working title)
Untitled Niki Caro Project (USA) (working title)

MPAA:

Rated R for sequences involving sexual harassment including violence and dialogue, and for language.

Runtime:

126 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS

Certification:

USA:R | UK:15 | Ireland:16 | Australia:MA | Japan:R-15 | Singapore:NC-16 | Netherlands:12 | Hong Kong:IIB | Switzerland:12 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:12 (canton of Vaud) | Brazil:16 | Argentina:16 | France:U | Sweden:7 | Iceland:12 | Malaysia:18PL | Malaysia:U (cut) | Finland:K-15 | Canada:14A (Ontario) | South Korea:15

Filming Locations:

Chisholm, Minnesota, USA

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

Some of the women standing up in the last courtroom scene were real plaintiffs.

Goofs:

Continuity: When Bill White is sitting at the bar, contemplating whether to talk to Josie, the second button on his right sleeve is unbuttoned. When he gets up to go talk to her, he lifts his right arm, and his shirt sleeve is fully buttoned.

Quotes:

Arlen Pavich: The doctor says you look darn good under those clothes - sense of humor ladies, rulo numero uno.

Movie Connections:

Featured in 12th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards (2006) (TV)

Soundtrack:

Do Right To Me Baby (Do Unto Others)

An important issue dumbed and numbed

I hate to give North Country a relatively low vote because this is such an important issue, and I appreciate the good intentions of director Niki Caro, and the A-list actors who no doubt took a big pay cut when agreeing to take a role.

On the other hand, I feel disappointed, a little angry, as well as insulted as a woman that this hugely important story was made into a melodrama that flattens out what really happened, and somehow manages to diminish the political nature of sexual harassment, even while seeming to highlight it.

At least 90 percent of the problem had to do with Michael Seitzman's script.

In the interview with Seitzman on the DVD, he makes clear that he didn't think the sexual harassment story was the real story. The real story, he said, was the traumatic experience Josie had in high school, and her relationship with her son.

Therefore he should have written a script for Lifetime focusing on what he felt was the "real story". He should not have used one of the most important cases for sexual harassment in legal history as the vehicle for telling this other story.

The producers should have demanded a script that more closely resembled Susannah Grant's Erin Brockovich. The sequence of victimization after victimization depicted in North Country didn't let us get to know Josie's character in any depth. We saw her slammed against the wall again and again, from beginning to end. We see that she stands up against the oppression, but we aren't taken into her sensibility, her choices, her process, her blind spots, character change, etc, etc, like in EB. Likewise, the lack of complexity in the male "macho" characters also flattens the story, and takes away from the real difficulties in challenging sexism and sexual harassment. In real life, character complexity of those who oppress or who defend oppressors is part of what makes the problem of sexual harassment difficult to fight.

I read an interview with Niki Caro, and though I think she's a very talented director, I got the sense that she didn't really get the politics or history behind sexual harassment. It seems things aren't as bad in New Zealand as they are here in the U.S. This is a foreign culture to her, and Northern Minnesota is certainly a foreign culture. I wish she would have spent more time fully understanding the issues and cultural dynamics (including the accent and mannerisms of the area, etc, which were sprinkled into the movie, but not rigorously replicated) before undertaking the project. If she had gone the extra mile to immerse herself in the issue and the region, perhaps she would have demanded a total rewrite of the script.