DIRECTOR
Steven Soderbergh
SCREENWRITER
Susannah Grant
PRODUCERS
Danny DeVito
Michael Shamberg
Stacey Sher
CINEMATOGRAPHER
Edward Lachman
MUSIC
Thomas Newman
EDITOR
Anne V. Coates
CAST
Julia Roberts (Erin Brockovich)
Albert Finney (Ed Masry)
Aaron Eckhart (George)
Marg Helgenberger (Donna Jensen)
Cherry Jones (Pamela Duncan)
Tracey Walter (Charles Embry)
Peter Coyote (Kurt Potter)
Conchata Ferrell (Brenda)
Erin Brockovich-Ellis (Julia)
MPAA rating: R
Running
time: 130m
U.S. release: March 17, 2000
Video availability: VHS - DVD
Official
site
Other Steven
Soderbergh films
reviewed on this website:
- Full
Frontal
- Ocean's
Eleven
- Out
of Sight
- Solaris
- Traffic
See also:
- Hooters (a Tirade against movie critics
who fixated on Julia Roberts' cleavage in this movie to the exclusion
of all else)
|
If
you want mainstream Hollywood entertainment done right, you have
to bring in an outsider. Sometimes, as when a maverick like Sam
Raimi is unhappily married to a dud like For
Love of the Game, the union produces a stillborn child;
but sometimes a talented director brings the material up to his
level. Steven Soderbergh, after over a decade of experimenting
in various forms of independent film (sex, lies and videotape;
The Underneath; Schizopolis; The Limey),
has begun to dabble in the mainstream; his current marriage,
to a major studio film with an A-list star, could have been enough
to send him scurrying back to the art house.
The result here is not stillborn but a frisky, friendly child
full of surprises. Erin Brockovich, Soderbergh's new comedy-drama
starring Julia Roberts, is in outline a lot like several other
films, particularly A
Civil Action, as well as the sort of true-life empowerment
story you see on Lifetime every six months or so. But this film
moves with a light step, and it takes time not just to establish
characters but to appreciate them. You're in the hands of a director
who genuinely likes people. In tone, the movie is actually closer
to gentle mid-period Jonathan Demme films (like Melvin and
Howard or Citizens Band) than to a routine legal drama.
If Erin Brockovich didn't actually exist (she does, and has a
cameo in the movie as a waitress named Julia), some screenwriter
would've had to invent her for Julia Roberts. As written by Susannah
Grant (Ever After and the upcoming 28 Days), Erin
is brassy, determined, full of love for her three kids and wary
of everyone else; the character is perfectly suited to Roberts'
strengths, and she plays Erin as a frazzled, ordinary woman with
a knack for cutting to the point. No cutie-pie, Erin is a sharp,
angular person -- an irresistible force that doesn't believe
in immovable objects.
After managing to find work at a California law firm, Erin starts
to discover odd things in routine real-estate files: medical
records that don't seem to belong there. She soon learns that
a local plant, Pacific Gas & Electric, has been contaminating
the water with chromium and has been trying to buy off the locals.
With the initially grudging help of her boss, Ed Masry (Albert
Finney), Erin digs deeper and tries to rally the townspeople
in a lawsuit against the corporation.
In a way, Erin Brockovich is the distaff companion to
Wonder
Boys -- a disorganized wreck finds meaning in an endeavor
larger than him/herself. The filmmakers here, as in Wonder
Boys, pay more attention to subtleties of character than
to plot mechanics. The actors are given space to bloom. Aaron
Eckhart, so reptilian in his other roles (In
the Company of Men, etc.), turns in a relaxed, friendly
performance as George, the scruffy biker who gets involved with
Erin and looks after her kids because he genuinely likes them.
Albert Finney, too, seems energized in his many scenes with Roberts.
They make a great team, providing two laughs for the price of
one: Erin says something outlandish, and then Ed stands there
silently, unsure whether to scream or laugh, or both. Watching
Albert Finney struggling to keep his composure is one of the
quieter pleasures of the movie season.
Don't mistake Erin Brockovich for a classic or a masterpiece.
Like Soderbergh's previous mainstream film Out
of Sight, it's simply an example of Hollywood entertainment
done with finesse and compassion, the way it always should be
but so often isn't. Perhaps such a movie triumphs more because
of what it doesn't do than because of what it does (Erin Brockovich,
for instance, contains not a single tedious courtroom scene).
The movie isn't really even about the lawsuit or about going
after a corporation. It's about a woman finding out what she
was meant to do, and finding the community that needs her. |
