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Erin Go Brag Reviewed by Carlos deVillalvilla (Click on the images to see larger version and credits.) You never know what's going to change people. We all go along our merry ways, never suspecting that around the corner, some event is going to turn our lives completely around. I guess that's why they call them "life events." Erin Brockovich (Julia Roberts) is a single mother, unemployed, struggling to make ends meet in a world not particularly kind to single moms (ask Da Queen about it sometime). After a car accident leads her to seek legal rederess, she meets lawyer Ed Masry (Albert Finney) on a referral. When he loses her lawsuit, she shows up at his office, demanding a job, barely hiding her desperation. Intimidated, Ed gives her one.
See, Pacific Gas and Electric of Southern California is trying to buy property near its Hinkley, California, plant to make way for an offramp for an interstate freeway that will make it more convenient for its workers to get to work. It so happens that the family in one of the homes thinks the price PG&E is offering is a bit low, so they've retained Masry's services to negotiate for them. Y'see, they have to get a higher price, due to the mounting medical bills of both the husband (stricken with Hodgkin's Disease) and wife (multiple forms of cancer), as well as the kids (who are sickly and suffer from unusually nosebleeds).
However, it's an uphill battle, even though Brockovich has uncovered documentation that the corporate suits at PG&E not only knew what had been going on in Hinkley for a quarter of a century, but had instructed fuctionaries to lie about it. PG&E is a billion-dollar utility with nearly unlimited resources at its disposal, while Masry's firm is a small one with Masry himself more inclined to retirement than taking on a corporate Goliath.
Director Steve Soderbergh ("Sex, Lies and Videotape") wisely sticks to the facts in this case, which are compelling enough. It's not just a triumph of the little guy over the big nasty corporation, it's the journey of one woman down the path of self-discovery as well. Brockovich, who refuses to conform to any standard other than her own, is never taken seriously by anyone until she finds respect through her efforts in this crusade. Perhaps the most admirable thing about Brockovich is that though others begin to accept her and respect her, she is still basically the same woman in the tight, lowcut halters and miniskirts she's always been. If only the world had more Erin Brockoviches in it, perhaps there would be more honesty in it.
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See cast, credit and other details about "Erin Brockovich" at Internet Movie Data Base. |