North Country

If I hadn't heard good things about North Country, I probably wouldn't have watched it; it doesn't seem like the kind of movie I would enjoy. But the movie sold itself to me by the intense human struggles it portrayed, and by the excellent quality of the acting that brought these struggles to life.

I never for a second thought of the people on screen as actors; they were their characters. Well okay, I thought of Sean Bean as an actor for about 2 seconds, but that's only because he's been in so many films I've seen lately. The main character is a miner, and a single mother--very different from me, yet I was completely able to understand her and sympathize with her.

I had read that this movie is about sexual harrassment. I guess it is, but that's a pretty vague phrase. I saw a movie about immature men doing cruel and disgusting things to women. I was appalled to realize that the real events that inspired this movie took place between 1984 and 1998. That is frighteningly close to the present.

I'm usually a fan of movies in which the main characters kick butt. North Country couldn't be more different, but far from being disappointed, I was inspired and awed. There were so many times when I felt the characters' inner rage, and knew they wanted nothing more than to spit in someone's face (or worse) for the evil lies being told about them. But I also felt their utter helplessness, because this is a movie set in the real world, and kicking your neighbor's butt won't really solve anything. Instead, again and again, characters showed incredible strength and did something constructive to solve their problems. The bravest thing I have ever seen any character do involved no violence or fear of death, just standing up and speaking out for justice.

North Country is an excellent eye-opener as to how far "civilized" American culture has to go, and it is a wonderful portrait of some incredibly courageous and hard-working people.