There is no other female star as watchable as Julia Roberts - no matter what film she is in, she is indeed the sparkling star whom can't take our eyes off. She sometimes makes good films ("Notting Hill," "My Best Friend's Wedding") and rotten films ("Runaway Bride," "Sleeping With the Enemy"). Count her latest "Erin Brockovich" as one of her best, a conventional but unquestionably spirited and entertaining romp showcasing Julia's qualities to full flowering effect. She burns on screen with such radiance, beauty and toughness that the film will leave you beaming in phosphorescent delight.
Julia stars as Erin Brockovich, a real-life crusader who went against all odds and came back as a winner of justice. At the beginning of the film, Erin is desperately trying to get a job and uses her persuasive, feminine skills to get one (she fakes resumes to obtain interviews). She fails, ends up in a car accident, and gets a lawyer (Albert Finney) who fails to get her compensation for her neck brace. Erin is so overwhelmed with anger that she confronts the lawyer, Ed Masry, and convinces him to give her a job in his shabby L.A. office. She is after all a divorced, single mom with starving kids, but her attitude and flashy clothes, not to mention excessive cleavage, causes her fellow employees to take notice. After sifting through a pro bono case involving the company Pacific Gas & Electric in a nearby town named Hinkley, Erin discovers that deposits of a lethal substance called chromium had been placed in the water causing various tumors and other afflictions in the townspeople. She investigates and questions the townsfolk, and before you know it, she is knee deep in the water literally pulling a dead frog out as evidence.
Erin's personal life has its ups and downs. She reluctantly has a babysitter named George (Aaron Eckhart from "In the Company of Men"), a biker with multiple tattoos, a bandana and a big grin, but he is also a very nice guy and falls in love with Erin - the character is refreshingly cliche free of what we expect to see from hardcore bikers. After a while, George becomes the caretaker rather than the boyfriend since Erin is on her endless adventurous crusade against PG&E. Will Erin realize that her work is less important than her family, or will she fight to the bitter end and lose the multi-million dollar court case? This may be the stuff of a Lifetime TV drama, and I only wish that writer Susannah Grant devoted a little more attention to this inevitably fractured relationship. There is an uneasy balance between Erin's case and her home life, especially since George almost disappears from the story.
What makes "Erin Brockovich" special is Julia, and she cuts a dazzling figure out of this character. She is tough, funny, sexy, charming, rude, obnoxious, warm, caring, tender, flirtatious - my goodness, what a delight to see such a real, intoxicating woman on screen for once! Julia disappears into the role so well that we forget it is Julia, the movie star. For the first time in years, Julia acts with tremendous, dramatic force.
Albert Finney is also pleasurably engaging as the haggard Masry, and his double-take reactions to Erin's behavior and inappropriate language are priceless. Another miraculous performance is by Marg Helgenberger as Mrs. Jensen, one of the Hinkley townspeople afflicted with cancer - her porch scene with Julia is as moving as one can expect.
Director Steven Soderbergh, known for nonlinear puzzles like "The Limey" and "Schizopolis," effectively taps into Julia's high-wire act to keep things afloat. If the screenplay took more chances with such a conventional storyline, it might have been a more winning character study. As is, Soderbergh allows for some occasional jump cuts during Erin's frantic moods, and a burnished glow to the desert scenes in L.A. that makes one feel the heat and humidity. And Julia creates an inspiring character - an uneducated, strong, honest woman who used her brains and beauty to uncover corruption and to save people whom she cared about. Inspiring indeed.
For more reviews, check out JERRY AT THE MOVIES at http://buffs.moviething.com/buffs/faust/
E-mail me with any questions, comments or complaints at Faust667@aol.com or at jerry@movieluver.com
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews