Erin Brockovich Review by Tim Wick

Four out of Five Beakers

I'm super excited about writing this review. I've been doing reviews for this site for about three months and every time I write one, it is the day after the film's mass market release. I don't mind for the most part. Makes me look more like a regular joe who has to pay to see films like everyone else (which is true) so I would hope it would give me a bit more credibility in some minor way. But now I can review a movie before it actually comes out! No, not because the studios started sending me free tickets. Turns out there was a sneak preview of Erin Brockovich over at the Har Mar theatre, so we decided to take it in.

I had a lot of things pulling me either way on this little film. On the good side, I had seen the preview before The Cider House Rules and the film looked pretty good. The film also was likely to benefit from the fact that just about anything was probably better than the film I had seen the night before (Mission to Mars). On the other hand, I'm not a big fan of Julia Roberts and she was the film's star. The film also started by telling us it was "based on a true story" which is always a distraction for me because I start to wonder what was real and what was made up.

Well, that distraction didn't last long. After Mission to Mars, I can't begin to tell you how much of a difference a SCRIPT can make. The screenplay for Erin Brockovich was tight and charming and cared a lot for it's characters. The movie took the time to let you know the minor characters just a little so you could understand their motivations. Typically these small roles act almost as filler to the central plot. The film understood these characters were important and they could not be brushed aside or ignored.

Playing the title role, Julia Roberts may have played her best role. Erin is a single mother trying to make a living and provide for her three children. She has an ability we wish we all had, the ability to tell other people exactly what she thinks of them. To many, this would be considered bad social skills. With Erin, she is a sort of truth serum that forces people to deal with reality. Given that she ends up working with lawyers, this skill becomes increasingly valuble.

There is a lot going on here. Erin has found a job that is fulfilling as she investigates a huge case involving a company that may have poisoned the ground water and caused the illness of hundreds of people in a nearby community. She is trying to keep her family together and she is trying to forge a relationship that is better than her two failed marriages. Her boss (played wonderfully by Albert Finney) is trying to coast until retirement and she forces him to realize there are GOOD reasons to remain a lawyer.

We also see how this corporation has affected these people Erin is talking to. We see lives torn apart by cancer, fertility problems and every other kind of disease. To them, Erin is a saviour. She is their reason for living and their reason for hope in a world that has let them down.

In one particularly moving scene, we watch as one of the townswomen is being told her water supply has been poisoned. Slowly, she moves from disbelief, to the realization it must be true, to horror as it occurs to her that her children are swimming in that poisoned water at that very moment. It was effective without being preachy.

And the movie never got preachy. It remained real. Erin gets caught up in the case and begins to neglect her family. She realizes it, but doesn't know how to balance what she now feel compelled to do for these people she is meeting and what she is compelled to do for her family. The movie doesn't offer a pat solution for this problem, either. She is still trying to balance everything day by day.

The love story (what there is of one) is also well done. It was not "thrown in" because you needed a male love interest in a film centered around a female (as is so often done). Instead, it is another facet of Erin's life that she must learn to balance. She has become so used to being hurt by men, she can't accept that there might be a man that doesn't want to hurt her.

I really enjoyed this film. I think Roberts and Finney would probably be in the Oscar race had the studio waited to release this film until the fall. Don't let the daunting title scare you away. If you go, I think you will be pleasantly surprised.