First, Niki Caro gave us Whale Rider, her version of an ABC Afterschool Special; now she gives us a glorified Lifetime movie-of-the-week -- "based on true events," even -- in which all of the women are noble, all of the men are schmucks, and all of the plotlines are tired and predictable.
Charlize Theron, having struck Oscar gold for de-glamming in Monster, returns to that well (and scores another Oscar nomination) as Josey Aimes, a struggling single mom who goes to work in the iron mines of northern Minnesota. She and her female co-workers are not welcomed by their male colleagues, who subject them to vicious sexual harassment, ultimately leading to the first sexual harassment class-action lawsuit.
Now, I'm sure that what the real-life women in these mines went through was horrible, but I have a hard time believing that it was as cartoonishly and unsubtly evil as it's depicted here; the men in the mines of North Country are only a mustache twirl away from Snidely Whiplash.
Only two men are allowed any shred of humanity -- Woody Harrelson as Josey's attorney, and Richard Jenkins as her father, who also works in the mines; Jenkins gets much credit for taking the obligatory "she's my daughter, dammit" speech to his fellow miners and actually making something of it.
Frances McDormand landed an Oscar nomination for her work here as Josey's best pal, Glory, a fellow miner; it's hard to hear her doing a Minnesota accent without immediately thinking of Marge Gunderson and Fargo, and this performance isn't nearly at that level. To be sure, McDormand isn't helped by a script that saddles her with an unnecessary subplot in which she's taken seriously ill.
And as if the awful predictability and cardboard characters weren't enough, we get a final courtroom scene that trashes every imaginable rule of courtroom procedure, then tosses on a jaw-dropping "I am Spartacus" climax.
For this dreck, Joan Allen lost out on an Oscar nomination? Oy.
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