Erin Brockovich
Time for yet another film about a tired single mother that finds the perfect way to turn her life around. Hopefully this one turns out to be different.
As the film opens up, we're introduced to Erin Brockovich (Julia Roberts). A single-mom of three kids that's been in and out of two marriages. She's having some difficulty finding a job that will help her make money. After one interview, she gets into a pretty bad accident, so she goes to Ed Masry (Albert Finney) to sue the guy that caused the accident. She ends up loosing the case, which means that she's back to finding a job. After failing for a while, she ends up working for Ed. After some more time has passed, Erin stumbles across a case that intrigues her. So she heads out to find out what's happening.
For starters, the scenes were Erin is getting the evidence she needs to take down this big corporation and talking to the various townsfolk are the most interesting and fun to watch scenes in the movie, which is good because they're a majority of the scenes in the movie. The others are Erin dealing with the problems her investigations are having on the family. It's great that they showed that her absence from the family is having a negative impact on the kids. They don't like that they don't get to spend more time with her and she's actually missing some major moments from her kids' lives. She doesn't get to be all happy and carefree when it comes to her family while at the same time doing her job, which far too many movies try to pull off. It's just not realistic if they can do both, which is why I love that Erin can't. This is emphasized even more by the fantastic performance given by Julia Roberts. If she couldn't hit that emotional impact that the actual Erin hit during the real life events, the movie wouldn't be worth watching. However, she does manage to hit those notes, which makes for a fun emotional roller coaster ride. The dialogue is also really well written for someone in Erin's shoes. She never went to law school or anything close, and her dialogue shows it and also the achievement feeling someone has for when they manage to do something very few people believed they'd be able to do.
There are a few minor problems I do have though. There's one character that just really felt useless in the movie. That character is George. He serves as Erin's love interest to some extent, but for the most part is just another babysitter for her. Their relationship really doesn't build up at all and by the time something major happens between the two, I didn't feel the same way as Erin in that moment. I felt that George was right to do what he did there due to nothing happening between the two. The way these characters are usually done is that the love interest gives the main character a reason to keep going when they're thinking about giving up, but Erin never does think about that. She always keeps telling herself that she's doing this for, not only the people of the small town, but for her own kids as well. So there was no need for a love interest in the story. He could have been replaced with another baby-sitter and the story would have worked out the same way. However, if they did, that runs into the next problem that I have with these kind of films and that's that we all know what happens at the end. When a film is based off a true story or a book, everyone that's familiar with the story or the events knows how it will end. This loosens the grip on some of the more emotional scenes because we know that if certain things happened, then it wouldn't end the way it does. That's more nitpicky though.
So should you go see Erin Brockovich? If your a fan of crime dramas, then yes. It's a fun movie for those fans and I can see them actually enjoying it like I did. However, if you're not a fan, but still want to see it, I'd recommend either renting it or watching it on Lifetime since that seems like the kind of channel this movie was made for.
As the film opens up, we're introduced to Erin Brockovich (Julia Roberts). A single-mom of three kids that's been in and out of two marriages. She's having some difficulty finding a job that will help her make money. After one interview, she gets into a pretty bad accident, so she goes to Ed Masry (Albert Finney) to sue the guy that caused the accident. She ends up loosing the case, which means that she's back to finding a job. After failing for a while, she ends up working for Ed. After some more time has passed, Erin stumbles across a case that intrigues her. So she heads out to find out what's happening.
For starters, the scenes were Erin is getting the evidence she needs to take down this big corporation and talking to the various townsfolk are the most interesting and fun to watch scenes in the movie, which is good because they're a majority of the scenes in the movie. The others are Erin dealing with the problems her investigations are having on the family. It's great that they showed that her absence from the family is having a negative impact on the kids. They don't like that they don't get to spend more time with her and she's actually missing some major moments from her kids' lives. She doesn't get to be all happy and carefree when it comes to her family while at the same time doing her job, which far too many movies try to pull off. It's just not realistic if they can do both, which is why I love that Erin can't. This is emphasized even more by the fantastic performance given by Julia Roberts. If she couldn't hit that emotional impact that the actual Erin hit during the real life events, the movie wouldn't be worth watching. However, she does manage to hit those notes, which makes for a fun emotional roller coaster ride. The dialogue is also really well written for someone in Erin's shoes. She never went to law school or anything close, and her dialogue shows it and also the achievement feeling someone has for when they manage to do something very few people believed they'd be able to do.
There are a few minor problems I do have though. There's one character that just really felt useless in the movie. That character is George. He serves as Erin's love interest to some extent, but for the most part is just another babysitter for her. Their relationship really doesn't build up at all and by the time something major happens between the two, I didn't feel the same way as Erin in that moment. I felt that George was right to do what he did there due to nothing happening between the two. The way these characters are usually done is that the love interest gives the main character a reason to keep going when they're thinking about giving up, but Erin never does think about that. She always keeps telling herself that she's doing this for, not only the people of the small town, but for her own kids as well. So there was no need for a love interest in the story. He could have been replaced with another baby-sitter and the story would have worked out the same way. However, if they did, that runs into the next problem that I have with these kind of films and that's that we all know what happens at the end. When a film is based off a true story or a book, everyone that's familiar with the story or the events knows how it will end. This loosens the grip on some of the more emotional scenes because we know that if certain things happened, then it wouldn't end the way it does. That's more nitpicky though.
So should you go see Erin Brockovich? If your a fan of crime dramas, then yes. It's a fun movie for those fans and I can see them actually enjoying it like I did. However, if you're not a fan, but still want to see it, I'd recommend either renting it or watching it on Lifetime since that seems like the kind of channel this movie was made for.