Erin Brokovich
USA 2000
Reviewed by Andrew O'Hehir
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
Los Angeles, the 90s. Erin Brockovich, an unemployed, ex-beauty queen with three children, is sideswiped in a car accident. Her abrasive behaviour in court sabotages her case, but she insists her lawyer Ed Masry give her a job. Erin also begins an affair with her neighbour, a biker named George who babysits her children. Erin investigates a case in the desert town of Hinkley, Ca., where Pacific Gas & Electric has contaminated the water with toxic chromium and is trying to buy the townspeople's silence by buying their homes.
By interviewing hundreds of Hinkley residents, many of whom have cancer or other diseases, and studying the local water board's records, Erin builds a class-action lawsuit against PG&E. Her children grow resentful at her frequent absences and George leaves her. When Ed brings in Kurt Potter, a high-powered lawyer, Erin feels undermined, but agrees to convince the Hinkley residents to accept binding arbitration instead of a court case that could drag on for years. The townspeople are awarded $333 million (the largest such payment in US history). Ed pays Erin $2 million, and she and George reconcile.
Review
Much has been made of Julia Roberts' purported sexiness in Erin Brockovich and there's no doubt the star is an eyeful in her endless array of cleavage-exposing blouses and minuscule skirts (the question of where a nearly destitute woman gets all these clothes is not answered). But the real brilliance of Roberts' performance lies in the edgy, defensive quality beneath Erin's aggressive hotness. It's as if Erin accepts the world's judgement that her sex appeal is her most valuable attribute, but isn't sure it's ever brought her anything worth having. Still, the former Miss Wichita has no compunctions about employing her assets when necessary. When her lawyer-boss, the rumpled, beefy Ed asks her how she's so sure she can extract the necessary records from the water board's offices, she replies: "They're called boobs, Ed." Erin may be a hero, but she's definitely no angel. She's hot-headed, short-tempered, insecure and vain. She can be gratuitously cruel to her co-workers and has little interest in female solidarity. She addresses one overweight female employee as "Krispy Kreme" (a popular doughnut chain) and scorns the suggestion her revealing attire makes other women uncomfortable. "As long as I have one ass instead of two, I'll wear what I want," she says.
It's difficult not to sympathise with her easy-going biker boyfriend George, who feels he's bearing the brunt of all Erin's pent-up resentment against men. But Roberts is completely convincing as a woman who feels she can't afford anything like George's laissez-faire attitude toward love and life. There's a magnificent moment when Erin senses herself falling for him despite her better judgement, and her mouth twists into a grimace of temptation and regret, like someone biting into a delicacy she has sworn off.
If Roberts' delightful performance, shaded with a depth and complexity unprecedented in her career, is the centrepiece of Erin Brockovich, considerable praise is also due to Steven Soderbergh's restrained, respectful direction. Armed with a fine screenplay by Susannah Grant (based on the real PG&E/Hinkley case), Soderbergh never sentimentalises his David-and-Goliath story (in the vein of Norma Rae and Silkwood) or tricks it up with unnecessary cinematic gamesmanship. Edward Lachman's camerawork is fluid but never intrusive. He and the director are content to allow the actors and the crystalline light of California's high desert enough space to do the work.
Perhaps Soderbergh's idiosyncratic pattern of bouncing from star-driven Hollywood vehicles (Out of Sight) to zero-budget independent productions (Schizopolis) has lent him the confidence and perspective for Erin Brockovich. Many mainstream film-makers would have focused almost entirely on Erin's search for love and validation and boiled the lawsuit down to one or two scenes of heroic courtroom drama. Soderbergh's leisurely pace yields all sorts of unforced moments that heighten the film's naturalism, from Erin's first angry meeting with George tuning up his Harley-Davidson outside at night, to the scene in which she convinces cancer-stricken Donna Jensen PG&E has poisoned her water and lied to her about it. Horror spreading slowly across her face, Donna abruptly runs outside to drag her kids from the swimming pool.
There's also room in Erin Brockovich for fine acting in minor roles, including Marg Helgenberger and Cherry Jones as Hinkley women with whom Erin bonds and Tracey Walter as a slightly creepy local man who seems to be stalking her (but who, of course, holds a valuable secret). Albert Finney's Ed is another of the actor's familiar cantankerous types, mannerisms and accent apparently borrowed from W. C. Fields. Jamie Harrold offers an amusing shtick as a water-board clerk smitten by Erin; Peter Coyote is less fortunate with the generic role of a hotshot lawyer, one of the script's few weak links. Perhaps the best thing about this relaxed and supremely engaging film (for my money the best work either the director or his star has ever done) is that even its near-fairytale resolution doesn't offer a magical transformation. When we leave Erin, she is far richer and more successful than when we found her, but she's just as highly-strung and nearly as neurotic. Like the people of Hinkley, she isn't free from the consequences of American life, but she has done what she can to take control of her little piece of it.
Credits
- Director
- Steven Soderbergh
- Producers
- Danny DeVito
- Michael Shamberg
- Stacey Sher
- Screenplay
- Susannah Grant
- Director of Photography
- Ed Lachman
- Editor
- Anne V. Coates
- Production Designer
- Philip Messina
- Music
- Thomas Newman
- ©Columbia Pictures Industries Inc/
- Universal Studios
- Production Companies
- Columbia Pictures and Universal Pictures present
- a Jersey Films production
- Executive Producers
- John Hardy
- Carla Santos Shamberg
- Co-producer
- Gail Lyon
- Production Supervisor
- James C. Taylor
- Production Co-ordinator
- Robin L. Le Chanu
- Unit Production Manager
- Frederic W. Brost
- Location Manager
- Ken Lavet
- Post-production Supervisor
- Caitlin Maloney
- Assistant Directors
- Gregory Jacobs
- Dave Hallinan
- Michael Risoli
- Script Supervisor
- Annie Welles
- Casting
- Margery Simkin
- Associate:
- Carmen Cuba
- Voice:
- L.A. MadDogs
- Camera Operator
- Cris Lombardi
- Digital Visual Effects
- Cinesite, Inc
- Visual Effects Supervisor:
- Tom Smith
- Visual Effects Producer:
- Carole Cowley
- Digital Compositors:
- Tom Zils
- Mark Lewis
- Jason Piccioni
- Digital Artist:
- Serena Naramore
- Special Effects
- Kevin Hannigan
- Foremen:
- William Harrison
- Kenneth J. Van Order
- Art Director
- Christa Munro
- Set Designers
- Masako Masuda
- Patricia Klawonn
- Set Decorator
- Kristen Toscano Messina
- Costume Designer
- Jeffrey Kurland
- Costume Supervisor
- Elena Del Rio
- Key Make-up Artist
- Susan Cabral-Ebert
- Additional Make-up
- Norman Page
- Tattoo Designer
- Ken Diaz
- Hair Department Head
- Deborah Jean Mills
- Hairstylists
- Michelle Weiss
- Bernard Gough
- Anthony Wilson
- Titles/Opticals
- Howard Anderson Co.
- Orchestrations
- Thomas Pasatieri
- Music Supervisor
- Amanda Scheer-Demme
- Music Editor
- Bill Bernstein
- Music Scoring Mixer
- Dennis S. Sands
- Recordists
- Tom Hardisty
- David Marquette
- Music Consultant
- Buck Damon
- Soundtrack
- "Redemption Day" by/performed by Sheryl Crow; "Bluegrass Hoedown" by/performed by Chris Horvath; "Honey Bunch", "Two Shots of Rye" by Paul Kerr, Andy Dewar; "Everyday Is a Winding Road" by Sheryl Crow, Brian MacLeod, Jeff Trott, performed by Sheryl Crow
- Production Sound Mixer
- Thomas Causey
- Utility Sound
- Richard Kite
- Recordist
- Eric Flickinger
- Engineering
- Pat Stoltz
- Re-recording Mixers
- Larry Blake
- Michael Keller
- Supervising Sound Editor
- Larry Blake
- Additional Sound Editors
- Julie Feiner
- Michael Chock
- Marvin Walowitz
- David A. Whittaker
- Dialogue Editor
- Aaron Glascock
- Sound Effects Recording
- Eric Potter
- Foley
- Alicia Irwin
- Dawn Fintor
- Recordist:
- Jon Vogl
- Mixer:
- David Betancourt
- Editor:
- Ezra Dweck
- Stunt Co-ordinator
- John Robotham
- Cast
- Julia Roberts
- Erin Brockovich
- Albert Finney
- Ed Masry
- Aaron Eckhart
- George
- Marg Helgenberger
- Donna Jensen
- Cherry Jones
- Pamela Duncan
- Veanne Cox
- Theresa Dallavale
- Conchata Ferrell
- Brenda
- Tracey Walter
- Charles Embry
- Peter Coyote
- Kurt Potter
- Scotty Leavenworth
- Matthew
- Gemmenne De La Peña
- Katie
- Jamie Harrold
- Scott
- David Brisbin
- Dr Jaffe
- Dawn Didawick
- Rosalind
- Valente Rodriguez
- Donald
- George Rocky Sullivan
- Los Angeles judge
- Pat Skipper
- defending lawyer
- Jack Gill
- defendant
- Irene Olga López
- Mrs Morales
- Emily Marks
- Julie Marks
- Beth, aged 8 months
- Erin Brockovich-Ellis
- waitress
- Adilah Barnes
- Anna
- Irina V. Passmoore
- babysitter
- Ron Altomare
- Charles John Bukey
- biker friends
- Randy Lowell
- Brian Frankel
- Sarah Ashley
- Ashley Jensen
- Scarlett Pomers
- Shanna Jensen
- T.J. Thyne
- David Foil
- Joe Chrest
- Tom Robinson
- Meredith Zinner
- Mandy Robinson
- Michael Harney
- Pete Jensen
- William Lucking
- Bob Linwood
- Mimi Kennedy
- Laura Ambrosino
- Scott Sowers
- Mike Ambrosino
- Kristina Malota
- Annabelle Daniels
- Wade Andrew Williams
- Ted Daniels
- Cordelia Richards
- Rita Daniels
- Ashley Pimental
- Brittany Pimental
- Beth, aged 18 months
- Larry Martinez
- Nelson Perez
- Judge LeRoy A. Simmons
- himself
- Don Snell
- Michael Shamberg
- PG&E lawyers
- Gina Gallego
- Ms Sanchez
- Ronald E. Hairston
- car messenger
- Scott Allen
- town meeting plaintiff
- Sheila Shaw
- Ruth Linwood
- Matthew Kimbrough
- bartender
- Jason Cervantes
- check messenger
- Certificate
- Distributor
- Columbia TriStar Films (UK)
- tbc feet
- tbc minutes
- Digital DTS sound/
- SDDS/Dolby digital
- Colour by
- CFI