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Erin BrockovichRating:
Release Date: 06 January, 2004 Retail Price: $12.98 OUR Price: $9.88 You SAVE: $3.10! Cast: Complete Cast (5 total) |
Erin Brockovich Reviews
How do you think Julia Roberts really feels?
Watching Julia Roberts play a jobless, skillness single mother whose greatest glory in life was winning a local beauty pageant, might make you wonder what she really thinks. Though Erin Brockovich achieved success far beyond what most in her position would, Roberts is consistently playing down to a station far beneath her own. While not unique in this film or for this actress, its particular noticeable in the contrasts here. Roberts is the only true "welfare queen" that ever lived, the Queen of Hollywood playing a destitute single mother, giving a chance for the "common American" (or at least the lower middle class single mothers out there) to live vicariously through her. Does she actually empathize with her subject or feel only a professional patronizing cynicism, as if we, the peons of life, must watch a film like this to lift us up from our "hum-drum little lives" (to borrow a quote from Jean Hagen)?
Cynical or empathetic, Erin Brockovich at least manages to deliver. When it takes flight from reality it is entertaining and when it hits home on everyday realities it is deeply troubling. A sharp reverse in gender roles is deeply evident, with the pedagogically talented boyfriend watching the kids 24/7 while Brockovich goes off to pursue the substance of the film. Once this logistical arrangement is established, the boyfriend's screen time drops off dramatically, and it might seem at times that we are only to be reminded later that, oh yeah, they still exist (how dull), but that is an unfair interpretation. Brockovich's family gets more screen time and substance than the families of the protagonists of any other typical Hollywood thriller would get (Ordinarily we dont see the wife and kids unless they are in physical danger, or unless a sex scene is about to happen). The movie is conscious of its own gender reversal and thrusts the challenge of balancing work and family into the light, tackling the awkward compromises head-on. Indeed, there are very deep though somewhat implicit family values dominating the film, and its to the credit of the scriptwriters that they were able to mix legal thriller and family drama as if they themselves were working parents trying to balance work and home. Certainly a unique film.
yes, been, i know... i've lost the magic.
When i first saw this movie, i thought it was fictitious, so i thought it was boring. but then when i found out it was real, i was really impressed. i'm not really sure how they were able to document it since at the time JULIA ROBERTS was a nobody. i also didn't know that she used to work at a lawfirm. I mean, i'm not really sure how documentaries work, but why did they decided to make a documentary about JULIA ROBERTS? they couldn't have known what she was going to discover. anyway, i'm really really glad that they did because it was really amazing and touching. And look at all the people who became actors because of this movie! wow. wow, wow, wow, wow, wow.
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