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Erin Brockovich is being highly totted for being based on the true story of Erin Brockovich, a twice divorced mother of three who eventually won $333 million dollars (not mentioned in previews: for her clients) from a water company. Problem is, given the fact that you know "her case" wins -it's blatantly in the trailers-it becomes uninteresting to follow the story with specifics just to find out what information they've already shared.

The Hollywood hyperbole of Erin has her as an out-and-down-on-luck-gal who just can't seem to make ends meet. The movie opens with a collage of job interviews of Erin, cross-cutting between minute monologues of what she cannot do yet, but can learn to do quickly. After the same responses across the board (I presume) she gets in a car accident and hires lawyer Ed Masry (Albert Finney). Much to her luck after an outburst while on stand, she loses. So after a week or so, Erin demands a job from him and won't leave until she gets one. Obviously she does get one, and while going over a case to help her understand it more (note: she is not a lawyer), she gets permission to investigate some of the technicalities. Along the way, she gets a Harley Davidson riding neighbor, George (Aaron Eckhart), who no matter how rough and tough looking, squeezes his way to becoming her children's new babysitter.

One thing leads to another and she finds out that the water company, PG & E, has been knowingly filling its water with hexavalent chromium ("highly toxic, highly carcinogenic") and has caused widespread sickness to the residents of the small town of Hinkley. Erin crusades to win the families some decent money and convinces Masry to take the whole thing on (he has to fund it himself). Being the determined woman she's made to appear, Erin goes to the greatest of lengths to achieve what needs be done including the acquiring of 600 signatures to bring the case to another level in court (the technicalities can be more easily explained and understood in the movie). Like Superwoman, she does it.

Yes, it's great that the mislead peoples of Hinkley were compensated for their medical expenses and troubles, though no sum of money can equal the amount of pain and suffering many of those families endured and the permanent travesties that cannot be reversed. But too much of Erin Brockovich is nothing more than canned inspiration. Eccentric woman-cum-city heroine uses previously dormant abilities to save/help a busload of needy or disadvantaged people. Sure we like when we hear about these stories in newscasts or in magazine articles, but generally those sources of information spare us the tedious details which aren't pertinent to the development of the event. And especially in courtroom battles and disputes it makes it easier on us to have those details alluded to instead of played out. One of the biggest problems with Erin Brockovich is that much of both the broad side and the small side are too small and uninteresting to make a movie out of. So when the picture has the whole outcome advertised it seems simply absurd to sit through a two-hour plus movie where all the questions are answered on posters, commercials and TV spots.

The movie has a talented cast, and the shoulder placement of Roberts' character's status is no wonder why she took the role. She's entertaining to watch but a lot of this movie is shoving her down your throat and her character can be quite irritable. Erin is a hard character to like, and considering she's the whole of the movie, it makes it difficult to sit through if you can't tolerate her. The Erin portrayed on screen is brass, pushy, naïve, and often she is downright annoying. Now, to base the entirety of the movie on her, no matter what she achieved, is a risk because it doesn't give you any room to maneuver your feelings of the character. But at least she isn't being the darling cutie-pie (she gets to be a lot more scurrilous, with her most common vulgarity being something with 'fuck' in it), although sometimes it looked like it took convincing for her to get that. Albert Finney has a decent run as Masry, and personally I could feel his pain as he was forced to deal with the childlike tantrums of Erin as if he personally needed her consent for every decision he had to make in regards to the case. Granted, none of it would have been possible without her, but he is the determining voice in the matter. Marg Helgenberger and Cherry Jones turn up for two opposing roles of the denizens of the city, and each bring their own special nuances to the role. (I only wish there could have been more of Jones, who, when last appeared in Cradle Will Rock, was all but too often obscured from the revolving plot as well.) As for Eckhart, his subdued performance was much more low-key compared to his extraneous efforts in his prior two films, In the Company of Men and Your Friends and Neighbors, both directed by Neil LaBute. However, if it is of any interest, he must have been one of the nicest tattooed "biker dudes" portrayed on screen without having any ulterior motives (again, at least not explored on screen).

Erin Brockovich is an interesting turn for director Steven Soderbergh. My curiosity lies in what attracted him to such a project. The old saying is, "to each his own," but in the past Soderbergh has proved his creativity in the selection of his movies. Generally, Soderbergh has either had a proclivity towards the quirky, such as sex, lies and videotape, Kafka, and Schizopolis or the more "in" or "cool" movies like Out of Sight or The Limey. I myself prefer the quirky he's done, and I admired Out of Sight for the fun of it, and even his closely detailed period piece King of the Hill (not to be confused with the syndicated cartoon show). I wouldn't consider him the odd ball out, but he's always seemed to stray from the big lights with the exception of Sight, but then again with this, it's funded by two major studios: Universal and Columbia. So as far as his motives for choice, I'm clueless. But I don't think the material is conducive with him, and not vise-versa.

Like one of the patchy "feel good movies of the year" last year, Music of the Heart, or the year before with Patch Adams, the feeling of the manipulation in the script is growing greater. For obvious reasons most real life adapted stories need somewhat of a fixing, but the thick Hollywood Makeover that movies like these are getting have become overly picture perfect, and it hurts the development or the attachment you get from the movie. The growth that you go through is cut off prematurely and never can quite regain the feeling it began. Another problem here might be the screenwriter, Susannah Grant, who previous to this has only done some work on the TV show Party of Five. I give her the credit of patching the story up to The Hollywood Standard, but she includes more than enough small things that was not pertinent for our knowledge and contribution of the story. It's just that I found the majority of dialogue and conversation to be quick cash-ins with aphorisms and epigrams. (After all the 600 have signed the petition, a big-wig lawyer who had collaborated and financed part of the case looks on flabbergasted. Roberts retorts with, "Seeing that I have no brains or law expertise, I just went over and performed 634 sexual favors. Boy, and I tired." Everything is along those lines.) The problems become the unbelievablity of the dialogue and the declination of how everything she says turning out to be some pertinent epiphany or saving grace. Erin Brockovich's biggest problem is Erin Brockovich herself. No amount of quick wits or silly reference to the '80s hooker-style clothes she wears is enough to make you like her, and in a movie where everything to the title is done after her, it's hard to get a universal or even partial positive reception to it.

Final Verdict: C

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originally posted: 03/18/00 05:10:58
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