orth Country has been described as Norma Rae meets Erin Brockovich. Not a bad comparison considering both films were nominated for Academy Awards. The film is inspired by the true story of Lois Jenson, who after 25 years and three trials, led and won the first sexual harassment class action suit in the United States, permanently changing the legal status of women in the workforce. With a story like that, it's little wonder, then, that three celebrated, award-winning actresses are standing behind a work as important as North Country. 

  Charlize Theron (Monster) plays Josey Aimes, who returns to her hometown in northern Minnesota after a failed marriage. A single mother with two children to support, she turns to the local iron mines for work-an industry long dominated by men and unaccustomed to change. Frances McDormand (Fargo) is Glory, one of the few female miners in town, who encourages Josey to join the team of workers who blast ore from rock in the gaping quarries. Josey is ready for the difficult and often dangerous work. She is not prepared, however, for the harassment she and the other female miners suffer from their male coworkers.
actors
Charlize Theron Frances McDormand
Sissy Spacek Woody Harrelson Sean Bean

director
Niki Caro

locations
Minnesota
New Mexico

outtakes
While the actual events took place in the 1970s, Caro chose to set the film in 1989 to 1991 because the words "sexual harassment'' were being talked about more widely.


  When Josey speaks out, she is met with resistance -- not only from her employers, but also from a community that doesn't want to hear the truth. Among them is her disapproving mother, Alice, played by veteran Sissy Spacek (Coal Miner's Daughter), and her father Hank (Richard Jenkins), a long-time miner himself. Her efforts to build a better future for herself and her children wind up adversely affecting her young daughter and teenage son, who must cope with their mother's sudden notoriety, and a past she was hoping they would never have to know. Forsaken even by many of her own colleagues who fear she is only making matters worse, Josey, along with her lawyer, played by Woody Harrelson, finds the courage to stand up for what she believes in. "It's a lonely road to make a statement like that," said Theron.

  Caro told Entertainment Weekly that while filming was going on in Minnesota where the real-life case of Jenson vs. Eveleth Mines took place, locals were not eager to reopen old wounds. "They were anxious," she said. "It's a part of their recent history they're not proud of."

  Still, she was not interest in driving home any male-bashing message. "The most important thing to me is that the audience not come away with an idea that men are evil and women are good," she said, "because I know that not to be the case."

- Rui Umezawa