Erin Brockovich Reviewed

ROVIN' AND RAVIN' WITH MIKE

Erin Brockovich: Norma Rae Silkwood's Civil Action - with Laughs!

Write one hundred times. No, it’s just your time, so make that two hundred times—I will go to see Erin Brockovich.

Hey, for once, a flashback to my teaching career is no nightmare, since it involves a real dream of a film, Erin Brockovich, as big a surprise and delight as Hollywood has shared with us in some weeks. Despite a wry and wonderful script and lean, clean directing, the credit for this film being so much more than another dreary liberal docu-drama about pollution and whistle-blowers goes to Julia Roberts.

Simply, this woman is a wonder. After skidding along through several light roles, relying so much on being such a pretty woman, Roberts gives a performance against which her work will always be measured. It has been a long time since anyone, especially a woman, has had such a rich, multi-dimensioned role or has filled it out so thoroughly, as thoroughly as Roberts fills out her costumes. But, then, these costumes are rather skimpy but the role is rather rich.

As I count, Roberts/Brockovich is seen in at least five relationships. Most importantly, there is her relationship with her children. An unmarried, unemployed mother of three, Erin is desperate to provide for her children, with a desperation that motivates and justifies some of her brashness and brazenness. The most crucial scene in this film is the one in which she takes her children out for burgers, not exactly a major league treat, but orders only a cup of coffee for herself. That scene explains so much else of what happens in this film. She is always, until the very last moments of the film, a tigress scratching out a life for her cubs, I mean, children.

Then, there is her weirdly anemic relationship with the biker George (Aaron Eckhart), who suddenly appears as a next-door neighbor with a heart of cotton (gold would be too hard) and a penchant for babysitting. By the way, Erin has a real sewer mouth, but except for a really touching scene in which Erin and George each wears her Miss Wichita tiara while touching, there are few anatomy lessons. Maybe we need a little more anatomy, a little more pizzazz… maybe even an admission on George’s part that he’s always dreamed of wearing a tiara while astride his Harley? (Naw, we’ve already had one Flawless.)

Strangely enough, the more passionate relationship with a man is with Ed Masry (Albert Finney), first her lawyer, then her boss, and finally, her colleague. In a small, important scene, Masry speaks on the telephone to a woman he calls "sweetie," to make clear there is a woman in his life, and that Erin doesn’t stand a chance in that department… not that she seems interested in buying a ticket in the lottery. The words supporting actor have been abused lately. The term "supporting" has come to be a shorthand euphemism for "small role." But Finney is truly a supporting actor, in every good sense of the words, generously playing straight man to Roberts, and apparently enjoying his work. In fact, the only thing that distracts from the performances in this film is how much pleasure the performers seem to take in their work.

Roberts plays the part of Erin Brockovich, an unemployed, almost unemployable, currently unmarried mother of three, who demands that her lawyer hire her after she trash-talks her way to defeat in a civil action trial against a doctor who drove his Jaguar into her car. Once hired as a filer of papers in the lawyer’s office, she rouses the town of Hinkley, California to sue the company that has poisoned its waters. A very significant part of her character is revealed in her relationship with various people in the town. Erin herself explains that she is treated in that town with a respect which she has never before experienced.

The script gets a little weak in some of these scenes, as Erin starts to take on the patina of a saint, the only person to whom the lower-middle-class residents of the town will share their doubts, denial, fears, and bitterness. But, remember the hamburger scene. Erin is the only one who will listen to them. She can listen not only to but also in their tone of voice, and when she explains that they do not dream of money but of safety and comfort for their children, we understand that that has been her dream, not just some stray noble thought.

Finally, most importantly, Roberts does what performers on film have always done best. They show us how we are all alike, not how we are different, as she shows us Erin in relationship to herself. We watch, just as we did in The Truman Show, a person breaking out of the egg, opening him or herself to previously unimagined possibilities. That Erin is doing what she does for her children as much as for the children of her law firm’s clients is all the more heartening.

Erin foregoes her dry feet, to get down, wet, and dirty to scoop dead frogs out of the polluted water, in her fight against a multi-billion dollar corporation which doesn’t have the boobs, guts, or heart of their unlikely adversary. OK, we’ve seen A Civil Action, Norma Rae, and Silkwood, even one of this year’s Academy Awards darlings, The Insider, but till you’ve seen Julia Roberts in this film, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

And, if you need evidence that the horrors Erin battled are real, then, start with feet dry, heart full of noble thoughts, and love for Erin, whose name adds a special richness to her Irish opening date, the 17th of March, at the homepage of the law firm for which she works.