Themes: Underdogs, Righting the Wronged, Down on Their Luck
Main Cast: Julia Roberts, Albert Finney, Aaron Eckhart, Marg Helgenberger, Cherry Jones
Release Year: 2000
Country: US
Run Time: 131 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
Julia Roberts stars in this legal drama based on the true story of a woman who helped win the largest settlement ever paid in a direct-action lawsuit. Erin Brockovich (Roberts) is a single mother of three who, after losing a personal injury lawsuit, asks her lawyer, Ed Masry (Albert Finney), if he can help her find a job. Ed gives her work as a file clerk in his office, and she runs across some information on a little-known case filed against Pacific Gas and Electric. Erin begins digging into the particulars of the case, convinced that the facts simply don't add up, and persuades Ed to allow her to do further research; in time, she discovers a systematic cover-up of the industrial poisoning of a city's water supply, which threatens the health of the entire community. Erin Brockovich was directed by Steven Soderbergh; Julia Roberts earned a $20 million payday for her work on the film, the highest salary paid to a female film star up to that time. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review
A crowd-pleasing, "based on true events" drama that sidesteps the usual treacly sentiment, Erin Brockovich finally gave Julia Roberts a role that capitalized on her strengths as it expanded her range, and in the process catapulted Steven Soderbergh into the highest echelon of Hollywood directors. Working from Susannah Grant's zinger-packed script, Soderbergh and Roberts portray Brockovich's crusade not as a leaden, courtroom-bound affair, but as a bustling, unpredictable journey: her everyday struggles with unreliable babysitters, reckless drivers, and unsympathetic employers are just as important as her effort to topple a corporate cover-up, and just as entertaining. Brockovich is brassy, foul-mouthed, and at times pig-headed, and there's no attempt to soften the character or bend her will to fit the saintly transformations of traditional melodrama. Instead of attempting a Meryl Streep-style disappearing act, Roberts accentuates the qualities that made her a star -- humor, empathy, confidence -- while inviting the audience to wonder if her character isn't occasionally too reactionary or short-fused. The wonderfully understated Albert Finney further emphasizes the give and take: "I really hate you sometimes," he barks, his character's respect and sympathy comically evident. Even as the film nears its preordained happy ending, Soderbergh maintains an air of unpredictability, thanks in large part to the democratic cuts of legendary editor Anne V. Coates and the unobtrusive, hazily beautiful camerawork of Ed Lachman. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide
Erin Brockovich (Julia Roberts) was an unemployed single mother of three children who, after losing a personal injury lawsuit against a doctor in a car accident she was in, asks her lawyer, Edward L. Masry (Albert Finney), if he can find her a job in compensation for the loss. Ed gives her work as a file clerk in his office, and she runs across some files on a pro bono case involving medical records in real-estate files and PG&E offering to purchase the home of Hinkley, California resident Donna Jensen.
Erin begins digging into the particulars of the case, convinced that the facts simply do not add up, and persuades Ed to allow her further research. After investigation, she discovers a systematic cover-up of the industrial poisoning (hexavalent chromium) of the town of Hinkley's water supply that threatens the health of an entire community. She finds that PG&E is responsible for the extensive illnesses that the residents of Hinkley have been diagnosed with and fights to bring the company to justice.
Erin meets a mysterious man in a bar that claimed to Erin to have destroyed documents at PG&E, and discovers a 1966 document that ties a conversation of a corporate executive in the San Francisco PG&E headquarters to the Hinkley station that knew the water was contaminated but didn't do anything about it and advised to keep it a secret from the Hinkley neighborhood. The evidence was examined by a judge without a jury and PG&E was court ordered to pay a settlement amount of $333 million that was divided among the 634 plaintiffs.
Erin Brockovich was released on March 17, 2000 in 2,848 theaters and grossed $28.1 million on its opening weekend. It went on to make $125.6 million in North America and $130.7 million in the rest of the world for a worldwide total of $256.3 million.[2]
Reviews
The majority of critics responded favorably towards the film. It holds a certified "Fresh" rating of 83% on film review website Rotten Tomatoes and 73 metascore on Metacritic. Newsweek's David Ansen began his review with "Julia Roberts is flat-out terrific in Erin Brockovich." Even John Simon conceded "yes, she can act." However, film critic Roger Ebert gave the film a two-star review, wrote, "There is obviously a story here, but Erin Brockovich doesn't make it compelling. The film lacks focus and energy, the character development is facile and thin".[3] In his review for the New York Times, A.O. Scott wrote, "After proving, for about 40 minutes, what a marvelous actress she can be, Ms. Roberts spends the next 90 content to be a movie star. As the movie drags on, her performance swells to bursting with moral vanity and phony populism".[4] Peter Travers, in his review for Rolling Stone, wrote, "Roberts shows the emotional toll on Erin as she tries to stay responsible to her children and to a job that has provided her with a first taste of self-esteem".[5] In his review for Entertainment Weekly, Owen Gleiberman gave the film a "B+" rating and wrote, "it's a delight to watch Roberts, with her flirtatious sparkle and undertow of melancholy, ricochet off Finney's wonderfully jaded, dry-as-beef-jerky performance as the beleaguered career attorney who knows too much about the loopholes of his profession to have much faith left in it".[6]
Accuracy
While the general facts of the story are accurate, there are some minor discrepancies between actual events and the movie, as well as a number of controversial and disputed issues more fundamental to the case. In the film, Erin Brockovich appears to deliberately use her cleavage to seduce the water board attendant to allow her to access the documents. Brockovich-Ellis has acknowledged that her cleavage may have had an influence, but denies consciously trying to influence individuals in this way.[7] In the film, Ed Masry represents Erin Brockovich in the car crash case. In reality, it was Jim Vititoe.[8] Brockovich had never been Miss Wichita. She had been Miss Pacific Coast. According to Brockovich, this detail was deliberately changed by Soderbergh as he thought it was "cute" to have her be beauty queen of the region from which she came.[7] One of the plaintiffs, Carol Smith, accused the movie of being "mostly lies".[7]
