Okay, here's the deal. I guess I've told you folks about dealings with lawyers and other suspender-wearing entities. But if you're new here, you'll quickly realize that lawyers should only be trusted as far as you can bowl 'em. It's not that every lawyer is just pure evil, it just seems like it, I figure. Those John Grisham books and movies haven't done much to change my opinion either. Although there's usually a good-guy lawyer as the hero, there's always the other kind of lawyer on the opposite side of the courtroom -- a pit viper with a legal pad. Jon Voight in The Rainmaker, for example. He submitted a wonderful performance, but in doing so, he only made me distrust the profession even more.
Who would ever want to be a lawyer in the first place? I know they make good money. (I've had to pay more than my share of legal bills. Actually, most of the legal bills I've paid belonged to my ex-wives.) Money aside, though, what would make someone willingly choose to enter a profession that's a notch below Used Car Sales in the trust department? Johnnie Cochran? F. Lee Bailey? Marcia Clark? No thanks.
But, something has happened to give me a little faith in the system. Julia Roberts became a lawyer. Well, not exactly a lawyer. She's playing a legal assistant in her new movie, Erin Brockovich, and well, if I knew that Miss Julia was waiting in the law office, I'd be inventing people to sue. It also helps things that this movie is actually a very impressive acting outing for Julia.
Miss Julia plays Erin, a single mom who's at the end of her financial rope. One day, while out job searching, she gets plowed into by another driver. She tries a personal-injury lawsuit, but that blows up in her face. Her lawyer, Ed Masry (Albert Finney), takes a bit of pity on her and hires her as a legal assistant. Erin learns quickly, and aside from her constant arguments over her clothing choices (she dresses like what my Momma calls a "hussy woman"), she finds herself comfortably working again.
One day, going over a file, she finds some odd documents tucked into it. She begins to investigate on her own, and literally stumbles into a cancer cluster in a small California town. The town of Hinkley is right next to a huge power plant, and, this plant is not exactly being careful about where it's dumping and treating hazardous waste. The whole town is poisoned, and it's up to Erin and her boss to stop the plant and its owners, Pacific Gas and Electric, from contaminating the town further, and own up to the damages it's already done.
First off, let me say this -- the most impressive part of this movie is Julia Roberts. Yes, she looks completely mouth-watering in her skin-tight skirts and low-cut tops. But, there's more to this role than her firecracker wardrobe. Erin is a self-centered, foul-mouthed mother of three. She's abrasive, she's edgy, and she's one step away from being on welfare. But, and this is the big "but," Julia is completely acceptable as this character. She has entered an era of her career when she no longer has to be the goody-goody. She can play against type and be believable, and that is a hurdle many actors today are dying to cross.
It helps that she has a director like Steven Soderbergh behind the scenes. Soderbergh knows how to pull a performance from his actors; hellfire, he made a name for himself by doing just that in sex, lies, and videotape. He actually made Andie MacDowell look talented, and with Out of Sight, he put Jennifer Lopez and George Clooney on the big screen A-list. A bit of a departure visually from his usual work, Erin Brockovich features little of the typical Soderbergh style. No jump-cutting, no flashbacks or flash-forwards, no odd camera angles. This is straight-on storytelling, following one driven woman on a crusade to do good. Essentially, he just points the camera at Julia and lets the film unspool.
I also found it interesting that the two main male roles in this film are supporting roles. They're good roles, but they are supporting ones. Aaron Eckhart plays George, a biker who lives next door to Erin and eventually becomes her love interest. I liked seeing Eckhart in a role that didn't require him to be completely evil, as he was in In the Company of Men. Here, he's a softie, a biker who doesn't mind babysitting. And, when Erin's investigation takes her further and further away from home, he enters into a role reversal. He's the one who's mad because she's never home and always working. This reversal cuts the Company role he had in two, and should push him into more mainstream stuff. The other male is Ed, played by Albert Finney. Now, my respect for Finney goes way back, and, honestly, he became one of my favorites with a little-seen film called Orphans. He's one of the best film actors around, and here he plays it a little more restrained than usual. Here, his job is to bolster Julia's performance, and he does that perfectly.
If I had an argument anywhere, it'd be that screenwriter Susannah Grant didn't give us that "black hat" role, the universal bad guy for the good guys to fight. There are only two scenes when we even see lawyers for Pacific Gas and Electric, and neither offers the "EVIL personified" spectre. For all those lawyers do in this film, you almost wonder why someone didn't just put a roller-derby stiff-arm on them and break their jaws. Susannah, hon, you gave us some fantastic good guys, you just forgot to give us any bad guys for them to fight. There's build, build, build, and then no big fight or anything to release the tension. You lit a fuse that we watch for two hours, then, it kinda fizzles out without a bang.
That being said, though, this detail does not detract from the fact that this is a dang good movie. It has everything necessary to get Julia on the short list next February, but, hey, next February is a lifetime away. It's refreshing enough that she's finally forgotten that spell she had a while back. You know, that "I-wanna-be-a-serious-actress" spell that dropped her into crap like Mary Reilly and Michael Collins. By returning to what she does best, Julia ends up being taken seriously afterall.
Folks, this movie should be seen, and quickly. Not just for its message, or for its blue-collar praise, or for its heart. Go see this movie because Julia Roberts is in it.
Image copyright Universal Pictures.
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in for observation