Pleasantly Shocked(spoilers)

Rating: 9/10 (25 April 2000)

Small town and Julia Roberts playing another likeable, all-American yokel - hmm, this seems like a familiar formula. And of course this is going to wind up being a hokey, humdrum, merely average movie just like Runaway Bride, right? Nope, not even close. Actually, it's probably the best mainstream movie to come down the pipe this year. In fact, it plays off of Julia Roberts' image as this particular type of character, as the movie is all about appearances and the fallacy of catering to those images. Julia prances around in EXTREMELY tight-fitting clothing while shouting sporadic obscenities, but despite this characterization, she is a wonderful and caring human being that you have to root for deep within your soul, even if you haven't liked a single one of her other films and practically despised her previous acting attempts(like myself). This is an apparently ordinary person acting in an extraordinary fashion, bettering the lives of hundreds of people without having the audience question her integrity - Roberts is completely believable and lovable. If you have ever been presented with the complexities of modern life, or seen others experience it and marvel at how they do it, you will cheer for Erin Brockovich. 9/10