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Julia Roberts shows once again why she is the one of the biggest
female box office draws of all time with another sparkling performance
in this adaptation of a true story.
Steven Soderbergh directs the story of Erin Brockovich, a solo
mother of three, who lands a filing job at a small local law
firm after its owner (Ed Masry, played by Albert Finney) fails
to successfully defend her in a motoring liability case. Erin's
brash manner and skimpy outfits quickly alienate her from her
frumpier female co-workers. The story really begins when she
discovers medical papers in a real estate case she is filing.
Erin gets suspicious and gets it into her head to go off and
investigate further but then almost gets fired for vanishing
from work for a week.
What Erin discovers is that residents in a small town have
been suffering from a range of strange and serious ailments
and that local utility company Pacific General and Electric
has been offering to buy these residents' properties. By wielding
her feminine charms in the local water board offices she gets
hold of documents that reveal that a harmful chemical (hexavalent
chromium) used by PG&E has been contaminating the local
water supply.
The true story is that this discovery eventually leads to the
largest corporate liability settlement of its kind in history.
The rest of the movie focuses on the sacrifices made by Erin
and Ed in working towards this outcome. For Ed, he is putting
his business on the line, the business that he has worked to
build for most of his life. For Erin, this job is the first
that she has ever had where people respect her. But in order
to achieve this she is forced to spend less time with her children
and is unable to devote attention to a potentially fruitful
romance with her Harley Davidson riding neighbour George (Aaron
Eckhart).
Julia Roberts is in excellent form as the loud mouthed and
determined woman with the low cut tops. Erin's character is
often very annoying and not always likeable and Roberts does
a great job of balancing this with the fact that Erin is hard
working, determined, and is genuinely torn between her duties
to her clients and her children. The fact that most of Roberts
roles have been in crowd pleasing blockbusters does not detract
from the fact that she is a good actress and that she is in
no small part the reason why those movies were so successful.
Can you imagine a mediocre film like Runaway Bride earning the
money it did if she had not been in it?
Admirable support comes in the form of the ever popular Albert
Finney as the world weary lawyer Ed Masry who so successfully
puts up with Brockovich's outbursts and shows a good heart despite
not really smiling until right at the end of the film.
Erin Brockovich is the next step in the interesting career
of director Steven Soderbergh. Hailed as a great new talent
with his debut of sex, lies, and videotape, his name is not
well known amongst the general public who did not flock to his
most recent (and critically well received) films Out of Sight
and The Limey. Erin Brockovich looks like being Soderbergh's
biggest box office success to date and may well lead onto his
becoming a more household name.
Despite the good all round performances, the movie as a whole
is not that interesting. Maybe this is because the small lawyer
versus big business angle has been done before (most recently
in 1998's A Civil Action). Also, because the outcome is well
known, there is little suspense.
In summary, good performances in a mildly engaging story.
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