A "Norma Rae" and "Silkwood", it ain't ...

Rating: 7/10 (27 September 2013)

In 1974, in "A Woman Under the Influence", Gena Rowlands gave one of the most extraordinary female performances ever as a woman alienated by her desire to please everyone, yet lost the Oscar to Ellen Burstyn, a struggling mother in "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore".
In 2000, in "Requiem For a Dream", Ellen Burstyn gave one of the most extraordinary female performances ever as a woman alienated by her desire to please everyone, yet lost the Oscar to Julia Roberts, a struggling mother in "Erin Brokovich".
Hollywood must have a thing for struggling mothers, I guess. But Julia Roberts' acting didn't convince me on that particular area, call it the anger from knowing that her performance beat up Ellen Busrtyn's heart-breaking performance, I call it the 'boobs' effect. Once we got that Erin Brokovich was a free-spirited single mother who loved to dress with tight skirts and deep décolleté highlighting her beautiful assets, could that be made a little bit less distracting, for plot's sake?
The film had the premise: an uneducated woman crusading against a California power lawsuit accused of poisoning water's supply and ultimately triumphing, far from the tragic heroine figure sacrificing herself, she gets the largest settlement ever paid in a direct action and her life financially improves (I hope her wardrobe tastes did too, from what I saw, it did, sexy outfits, but expensive ones).
Anyway, that kind of 'David vs. Goliath' story is pure gold for Hollywood, and Steven Soderbergh was right to believe in it, even 'Erin Brokovich' sounded more cinematic than any fictional name. But since the story is already phenomenal, why make Erin such a 'remarkable' woman from the very start? Why not allow Julia Roberts' undeniable charisma to disappear within her character?
I supposes Soderbergh tried to show some three-dimensionality and even succeeded by questioning whether Erin was motivated by justice or by the selfish desire to be the one (and only one) who pulled the giant on his knees, to prove herself capable. But damn, I couldn't get my eyes of Roberts' breasts all through the film, using Peter Griffin's vocabulary, as far as breasts (and legs, too) were concerned, "the film insisted upon itself", so much it even diminished the merit of Julia Roberts who's precisely supposed to play that kind of woman, at one point, I wondered whether it was Erin or 'Pretty Woman' I was watching.
Burstyn diluted herself in Sara Goldfarb's personality; Roberts relied too much on that superficial facade, as if she (or writers) thought we would only 'love' that she could outsmart smarter people unless we get the total opposite feeling from the beginning. I know this film is supposed to make you feel good for the victims of one of the most disgraceful injustices ever, well, I felt good for them, but that was the predictable emotional pay-off, everything that happened before was handled like 'obligatory plot devices', each time, in an over-the-top way.
Starting with the heroine: the struggling mother, the ultimate female 'underdog' figure, she lives alone with three children and doesn't trust men, because they all treated her like crap, and women in her office aren't any kinder. Maybe we're supposed to empathize with Erin, while we know every single woman who appears with these outskirts would not be watched with trustful eyes. But that's okay, she has the right to be the way she is, no matter how hypocritical it is to flash her (beautiful) body so eagerly and then wanting to be judged for smarts.
The irony here is that her clothes do make a point sometimes. For instance, when she goes to the water company and tries to flirt with the guy behind the counter to get some incriminating files, it makes sense, but she's always dressed like that, so, the point is lost. Let's get back to the clichés' department, at one point, Erin falls in love with George, a tough biker, but the guy doesn't provide anything to the film apart from being a plot-filler. Just compare Aaron Eckhart's role with Sam Elliot in "Mask" and you get the idea, the screenplay turned realistic stuff into pure fictionalized drama.
That's not even the worst, George pushes her to abandon the case when she's threatened. Maybe that's what happened in real life, but the way it was handled in the film was painfully unrealistic. Couldn't Erin tell George what her fight was about? I would have believed such a considerate man would respect Erin's efforts and even try to help her but no! He was selfishly complaining about the time she spent outside, and naturally, when he left, I don't know who couldn't see that coming.
The same unrealistic stuff happens again with Ed Masri, her employer played by Albert Finney. He fires Erin after three unjustified days off. He could have asked for explanations, or she could at least tell him, it would have cleared the misunderstanding. No, that was too convenient and we had to wait for five or ten minutes again. And I can go on and on, when the case is given to a bigger lawyer's office, one of the new assignees try to get in touch the plaintiffs, we know, it's a matter of time before Erin gets back on the road again.
The material wasn't revolutionary, and the film is relatively honest in the way it handles the case, no surprise witness, no spectacular revelation, no physical threats apart from the phone call. But the writing, directing and acting should have learned one thing or two from the 'New Hollywood' era. Something like "Norma Rae" or "Silkwood" for instance, but there's a quality in Sally Field and Meryl Streep that lacks in the 2000's Julia Roberts, and this is not a critic, Roberts is superb, but for once, she's victim of her superbness.