Starring: Charlize Theron, Frances McDormand, Woody Harrelson, and Sissy Spacek
Director: Niki Caro
Rated: MA15+
NORTH Country is a very impressive and moving film.
It is interesting to note that the US Catholic Bishops Conference reviewer listed it in the top 10 films of 2006.
Sad to say, the film was not well received at the box office there. Perhaps its truths were too hard-hitting.
It is to be hoped that it will succeed more in other countries.
The Church’s social teaching always puts its initial accent on the dignity of the human person.
This is the first principle in the Vatican’s recently published Compendium of Social Teaching.
One of the key contemporary elements in this teaching is respect for women, given the history of domestic and sexual abuse as well as harassment in the workplace. These are the themes of North Country.
The screenplay is written by a man, Michael Seitzman, but the film has been directed powerfully and perceptively by a woman, New Zealander Niki Caro.
Her previous film, Whale Rider, about a young Maori girl, is worth seeking out for those who have not seen it.
North Country also boasts an impressive cast of women, including three Oscar winners, Charlize Theron as Josie, the strong woman who confronts her boorish macho co-workers; Frances McDormand as her friend and union representative; and Sissy Spacek as her mother.
There are also fine performances by the men – Woody Harrelson as a lawyer, Sean Bean as a sensitive former miner and Richard Jenkins as Theron’s non-comprehending father.
The narrative here is based on actual events in the state of Minnesota in the 1980s.
The epilogue notes that while the women received modest compensation for their treatment at the iron mine, the verdict in their favour led to reforms worldwide in legislation about the employment of women and their conditions.
Not that the film is simply a moralising look at an abusive situation.
While it does have a documentary feel with detailed vistas of the rugged landscapes and close-up sequences of work in the mine, it is still a story that audiences can identify with – and has characters that really stir all kinds of emotions.
Josie is a single mother with two children who leaves her brutal husband, returns home and finds a tough job, cleaning, driving, doing repairs in the huge local mine.
The men resent the woman’s presence and make life difficult by insults, crass innuendo and more obvious advances, and the crudest of treatment.
Management, forced by law to employ women, do nothing to better the situations.
When it becomes too much, Josie takes action.
The other women don’t want to lose their jobs and are afraid.
Her father sides with the men. Management act deviously.
What makes the film so affecting is Josie’s background story, her son’s resentment at the mystery of his father’s identity (which proves a pivotal plot development during the court case), her mother’s quiet care, her father almost disowning her, her union friend’s kindness, as well as her suffering a debilitating disease. There is no lack of plot.
For those of us who have comfortable lives, this is a necessary immersion in a tough and harsh world where ordinary people try to manage, often without training and skills that will help them manage.
Their workplace and treatment often belittles them but they have no way out if they want to earn enough to support their families.
This has repercussions, of course, on family tensions, straining of relationships which will lead to damaging consequences.
Josie may have little education and, it is revealed, is more of a victim than we at first realise.
But she takes a stand and appeals for solidarity.
There is a strong scene towards the end when she goes to a union meeting where the men jeer and the women are silent.
She speaks but, more powerfully and emotionally, her father speaks in support of her.
That prepares us for the courts where she will prevail.
