(5) : North Country (2005)

Film Review : North Country (2005)

To talk shortly about the plot of this movie, it is based on a real story. 

A single mother, Josie, acted by Charlize Theron, is raising her two kids. 

During her early life, she had a sexual harassment when she was just a high school student by the class teacher during the detention class. 

From then, her life has been ruined and she became the gossip among the neighbors.

She decided to do something for feeding her children. 

While working as a hair dresser, she meets her old friend and hears that working in the mine can earn a lot more than at the hair salon. 

Including her, there were several female new-comers at the mine but the male workers treat them badly as if the female workers are their playmate. 

From there, Josie felt displeased and tries to find the way to solve it.

She wanted to work equally like man and equally get paid 

but there was discrimination to the women.

She even gave a try to visit the headquarter of the company to let the seriousness of the problem happening in the mine. But this didn't worked at all.

So, the story flows to the law court, she decided to sue the company.

While searching for the lawyer, Josie meets a neighbor, who is a lawyer, at the ice-rink, where her son had an ice-hockey match. He decided to help her case because it was the very first case during the time. 

Whereas Josie hired the male lawyer, 

the company hired the female lawyer and pointed out Josie’s youth and her sexual life. 

Despite the opposition from the company, 

at last, the female co-workers agree 

and raised their voices that the company treated them badly. 

So, Josie won the case at last  

and the law about the sexual harassment has been made in the United States.

 To sum up, this movie, 'North Country', is  dealing the sexual discrimination happened in the United States during the late 70s~80s.

Here, the sexual harassment happening 

between women and men in the work place is the main social issue.

Personally, as a woman, I felt sorry for Josie that she had a sexual harassment when she was young. I heard that aftermath of sexual harassment is so huge that it can't be imagine. 

Today, we can face many similar cases from the news. 

While watching this, it reminded me of the sexual harassment case happened among the disabled children in special- education school few years ago in Korea. It has been made as a movie called "도가니"("Silenced" in English title.) 

The hideous truth, concealed far too long.

The movie 'North Country' and 'Silenced' were not that easy and enjoyable to lay back at the couch while watching it.

I felt angry as a woman, and also as a daughter.

P.S 

I would like to give applause to Jeremy Renner, I hardly recognized it was him in this movie. Because, he looked charming in the recent movie like 'Avengers', unlike here.

He acted the character 'Bobby' in this movie. 

Bobby was the very character that I really hated while watching this movie. 

He was high school ex-boyfriend of Josie.

 He was a coward, he didn't helped Josie 

when he saw her suffering sexual harassment from the high school teacher. 

 Later on, he recognizes Josie at the work, and tries to treat her badly. 

I think the problem of men and women's 

'gender equity' is a hard problem to solve even these days. 

The world has changed a lot, towards women

 but there are, still discrimination happening.