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North Country Our rating: Rate this movie   MPAA rating: R (for sequences involving sexual harassment including violence and dialogue, and for language) Genre: Drama Theater release: October 21, 2005 by Warner Bros. Pictures Directed by: Niki Caro Runtime: 2 hours 7 minutes Cast: Charlize Theron (Josey Aimes), Frances McDormand (Glory), Woody Harrelson (Bill White), Richard Jenkins (Hank), Sean Bean (Kyle), Sissy Spacek (Alice), Jeremy Renner (Bobby Sharp), Michele Monaghan (Sherry), Thomas Curtis (Sammy), Elizabeth Peterson (Karen) Related: Talk About It/Family Corner

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There's a scene early on in North Country that hints at what's to come. Josey Aimes (Academy Award winner Charlize Theron), who's just escaped her physically abusive marriage and returned home to start over, is sitting in church with her parents and two kids. A row of fresh-faced girls in white frilly dresses enters the sanctuary for their first communion. There's something moving about seeing Josey's still swollen and bruised face and then cutting to the priest pronouncing "The Body of Christ, broken for you" while placing the wafers in the young girls' mouths.

Broken is an apt word for this woman who's already suffered much. And broken further she will be as she seeks a fresh start for herself and her kids through a difficult but lucrative job at the local mine, where she and the handful of other female employees are the sacrificial lambs for all the women who would one day dare to "take a man's job away from him," as many of the locals see it.

Charlize Theron in the lead role as Josey Aimes

The first scenes of the mine—aerial shots of the billowing steam rising from the towering smokestacks in the frigid Minnesota air—speak a lot as well of the pressure that's building within. The black coal and dirt laden with white snow—and Josey's black eye contrasting with the clean, white communion dresses—whisper of the rigid, black-and-white ways of this small, late 1980s, blue-collar town. Ways that are about to be challenged.

Josie's parents are the first to express disapproval of her new job. When she tells them of her new employment, her father (Six Feet Under's Richard Jenkins), who's worked at the mine for decades, just stares at her, then blurts, "So you want to become a lesbian?" Her cowering, compliant mother (Academy Award winner Sissy Spacek) tells Josie that her new job will shame her father.

But inspired by her friend Glory (still another Academy Award winner, Frances McDormand), who also works at the mine, and a salary that's six times higher than any "women's work" she could get, Josie persists. And while she's prepared for the back-breaking work, she isn't prepared for the sexual harassment dished out daily to the female employees.

The mines are a tough place to work, in more ways than one

During orientation, Josie's new boss tells her and five other new female workers that he thinks they're stealing jobs from deserving men, and tells Josie in particular that the company doctor said she looks "real good under those clothes," referring to the mandatory gynecological exam they all underwent. In the subsequent weeks, unprintable things are shouted at them on the work site, spelled out in human feces on their locker room walls, left for them in their lockers and lunches, and even done to them in dark corners of the mine.

Most of the women seem resigned to "take it like a man" and accept their paycheck every two weeks. But Josie speaks out against the ugliness and discrimination, eventually suing the company in a landmark sexual harassment class action suit. In fact, most of the film is told in a series of flashbacks as Josie makes her case and is cross-examined on the witness stand.

North Country is inspired by true events and the book Class Action: The Story of Lois Jenson and the Landmark Case that Changed Sexual Harassment Law. (The real Lois Jenson says she likes the movie.) Along with the tensions and issues, the movie does a great job of capturing a small working-class town. The mineworkers are believably gritty, the hair and clothing styles painfully 1980s.

Frances McDormand plays Josey's good friend Glory

On the heels of her award-winning role in Monster, Theron shines again in a role where she's not afraid to look ugly. Dressed in a mine jumpsuit and safety goggles, there's nothing Hollywood beautiful about her. And her range of emotion is impressive—from joy and pride when she buys her first home, to indignation and rage when she's falsely accused of sleeping around with her male coworkers, to vulnerability and fragility as a single mom out on the town with the girls looking for a nice man to dance with. Oscar buzz is sure to follow.

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