Writer: Susannah Grant (Screenplay)
Starring: Julia Roberts, Albert Finney, Aaron Eckhart, Marg Helgenberger, Cherry Jones, David Brisbin
Plot: An unemployed single mother becomes a legal assistant and almost single-handedly brings down a California power company accused of polluting a city’s water supply.
Tagline – She brought a small town to its feet and a huge corporation to its knees.
Runtime: 2 Hours 11 Minutes
There may be spoilers the rest of the review
Verdict: Strong Performance Biopic
Story: Erin Brockovich starts as we meet Erin (Roberts), a single mother of three trying to find herself a job but only finds herself involved in a car accident. This forces Erin to get herself a lawyer in Ed Masry (Finney) to get her compensation. When the claim goes badly Erin decides to push for a job there where she gets to work on her own small project.
The case she starts investigating for Ed involved a city power company that has been infecting the water around the planet, causing the people to get sick. Erin strikes a nerve and with Ed go on to take on the power company.
Thoughts on Erin Brockovich
Characters – The characters in this film are based on the real people, Erin Brockovich is a single mother of three children with two ex-husbands to her name and next to no money to her name either. Erin’s strength is a fighter and when she takes a job at a law firm she ends up getting involved in a case which could become the biggest in American history. Erin doesn’t come off as the nicest person who does seem to want to walk over people to get to the position she finds herself in. Ed Masry is a good lawyer who has been working his whole career doing the right thing on every decision he has made. George is the neighbor that sparks up a relationship with Erin but also shows how difficult it is for Erin to make a professional career happen with a personal one.
Performances – Julia Roberts won an Oscar for her performance in this movie, you can see why because she does carry the film. Albert Finney and Aaron Eckhart are both good strong supporting performances throughout the film.
Story – The story follows our driven Erin Brockovich who while just trying to make ends meet with her family ends up being involved in one of the biggest legal cases in history of America. The film shows what she had to sacrifice to make this case happen with the relationships she built to make the case go through to the courts to give her clients the biggest settlements.
Biopic– We get to see the work Erin put into the case while trying to balance being a single mother of three kids, this shows how hard she would work to achieve everything.
Settings – The settings are used to show most of where Erin lives, works, her clients live and the company she is trying to takedown. This all works well without being the most important of things in the film.
Scene of the Movie – The results.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – I couldn’t help but find Erin slightly selfish at times.
Final Thoughts – This is a great biopic that shows that hard work can achieve great results even without the training others might have in the same film.
Overall: This is a great film with a powerhouse performance.
Rating