Pretty good authentic law drama

Rating: 8/10 (2 May 2004)

OK, so Julia Roberts is not the best actress, and, admittedly, this probably doesn't contain the best acting she has pulled off in her career, but I think she does good enough in this movie. She plays a nearly totally independent woman who fights for a cause, that she feels is right, which costs her a lot of time away from her three kids. The plot is pretty good, and it develops at a good pace, keeping you interested in it for the duration of the film. The actors do okay jobs in portraying their respective characters, though I found a few of the minor characters to be played by fairly inexperienced actors, who didn't perform terribly well. The child-actors performed pretty good, though. The characters are well-written, but since it's based on a true story, I don't know how much of it had to be made up. The humor in the movie is quite well-placed and often very funny. The character that Julia plays is a symbol of independent women everywhere; she's intelligent, she has female intuition and she knows how to use her attractiveness to get what she wants. Granted, a part of the movie concentrates a lot on Julia's curves, or, more specifically, her breasts. Personally I think that as long as it's in context, which it pretty much always is here, it doesn't really matter; also, if the real Erin acted like that, shouldn't the movie have the fake one acting like that too? Overall, a pretty good authentic drama. I recommend this to anyone who enjoys dramas, independent women and authentic movies.