North Country (Full Screen Edition)

Buy This Item North Country (Full Screen Edition) by Warner Home Video  Available from Amazon  $9.99  on 11-17-2008     When Josey Aimes (Academy Award winner CHARLIZE THERON) returns to her hometown in Northern Minnesota after a failed marriage she needs a good job. A single mother with two children to support she turns to the predominant source of employment in the region - the iron mines. The mines provide a livelihood that has sustained a community for generations. The work is hard but the pay is good and friendships that form on the job extend into everyday life bonding families and neighborhoods with a common thread.Running Time: 126 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 012569593398 Manufacturer No: 59339 Reader Reviews "North Country" hit me hard - not least because it wasn't until 1998 that the class-action lawsuit that came from its inspiration was settled. No movie in recent years - all the way back to "Norma Rae" - had such an impact, because in 1976, I went through the selfsame treatment as the women at the Pearson Mines, only to a lesser extent and at a textile mill. I considered the same sort of legislation as Josey does in "North Country" - but in 1976, things hadn't quite reached the can-do point. Josey Aimes, a mother of two children, leaves her abusive husband and comes home to Minnesota's Iron Range to live with her parents. It's a telling moment of the pervading local mindset - at least the male mindset - when, on observing Josie's latest battle scars from her husband, her father asks condemningly, "Did he catch you with another guy?" It is this attitude Josey must face against the entire town, for the fault of having had a baby while still a high-school student. Her mother, played by Sissy Spacek, struggles to keep peace in the family by trying to short-circuit Josey's father's bitter disappointment in his only daughter, but she faces a losing battle. Despairing of gaining her father's approval, and wanting only to feed and house her kids herself, Josey takes a job at the same iron mine where her father works, because the pay is so much higher than she could otherwise make. Forewarned by her friend Glory, an old hand at the mine, she walks into instant verbal and some physical abuse; intimidation by suggestion, both in objects and grafitti in the women's locker room; groping and being put in unsafe situations by the male workers. Not all of the men are to blame, but under the we-are-brothers code, no one comes to the womens' defense. Josey is finally driven to the edge and quits, but decides to sue. The lawyer she picks is a just-returned local boy, a former hockey star, who has given up litigation in New York to come back home. He has serious reservations about winning such a case as a sexual-harassment lawsuit has never been done before; but Josey's absolute belief in her rightness here carries enough weight with him to bring him on board. It takes a lot for old attitudes to be beaten down, and here it is clear that the women involved had to surmount an enormous obstacle to go forward, battling not only old-boyism amongst the men but amongst the old-fashioned female populace as well, who don't want things stirred up. The actual lawsuit was brought in 1984 - not completely settled for 14 years - but these women made it possible for those after them to work without worrying about being intimidated or violated in any way in these work environs. For me, the most vivid and crucial scene was at a Union meeting where Josey's father finally faces the fact that his little girl is more courageous than an entire hall full of crusty miners, and stands up for his daughter at last. I'm disappointed that this movie got such little support. For me, it said everything that needed saying about a period of our working background that is shameful at best. This is a movie that should be seen by everyone.

North Country (Full Screen Edition) Available from Amazon Price: $9.99 Updated on 11-17-2008.

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