Erin Brockovich (7/10)
In Erin Brockovich, Julia Roberts takes the title role of an outwardly trashy single mother who takes a menial job in a small law firm and, despite her lack of legal training or experience, bluffs her way into investigating the apparent connection between chemical discharges from a power plant and the health problems experienced by families living nearby. Like The Insider, the film purports to tell a recent true story of corporations whose attempts to cover up their illegal activities are foiled by determined individuals.
Director Steven Soderbergh is effective but unobtrusive and lets Susannah Grant's script and the central performances carry the film. As the foul-mouthed Brockovich, who desperately tries to provide for her young family while finding a new kind of fulfilment in her investigation, Julia Roberts has a meatier and tougher role than her usual fluff. She handles it all very well, while still making the most of any opportunity to display that smile and those legs. With Erin Brockovich, Soderbergh has probably given Julia Roberts the kind of boost he gave George Clooney's stalled career in Out of Sight.
Romantic interest is provided by Erin's biker neighbour George. I had to wonder whether the real George could possibly have been as warm, generous and understanding as he is portrayed on screen. As William Goldman points out in his book Adventures in the Screen Trade, writing screenplays based on real events and characters is plagued by the problem that reality does not necessarily make convincing drama - sometimes real life is just too corny to be believable. Erin Brockovich is pretty corny, but maybe so is life. When movie stars play characters based on real people, there is always the suspicion that the actors are considerably better-looking than the people they're playing (Bonnie and Clyde were no Beatty and Dunaway) but the real Erin Brockovich has a cameo in the film as a waitress and she genuinely is a very attractive woman, so maybe George really was as wonderful as shown here and this whole rags-to-riches fairy tale in which the bad guys get their comeuppance is a faithful adaptation of what actually happened.
Erin Brockovich tells a truly remarkable story. As a piece of filmed drama, though, it's efficient but unexceptional.
--
Gary Jones
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