The Road

SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

The Road is based on a Cormac McCarthy novel. He paints bleak pictures of what’s left of benign humanity struggling to exist in a world in decline, as he did in No Country for Old Men. The first shot here is of beautiful flowers, trees and the sky, filled with brightness and colors. The Man (Viggo Mortensen) and the Woman (Charlize Theron) look happy, accompanied by a horse, which stresses what has been lost as there is then a jump forward in time. (Only one person has a name in this story to show how individuality has been stripped away, and people are reduced to their essential roles.) The brightness and color turns into the darkness of the nighttime with ominous fires glowing in the background. There are frantic voices in the distance. The Man starts to fill the bathtub, not to enjoy getting washed, but to store water, which shows how life’s priorities have altered. (Water is also used as a symbol for actual and symbolic cleansing in the movie)

The Man then wakes up as he had a dream of what happened in the past. He now looks scruffy and he is bundled up in tattered clothes next to a sleeping boy (Kodi Smit-McPhee), his son, in a cave. They are next to a waterfall, but the skies are gray and gloomy, and the landscape looks barren and ravaged, with stripped, fallen trees and no vegetation. The man reassures his boy that the noise they hear is just another earthquake.

We get inside the father’s head periodically as he provides narration in a slow, elegiac voice. He says the clocks stopped at 1:17, and there was “a long sheer of bright light, then a series of low concussions.” So, we are in a post-apocalyptic world. His description can imply that there was a nuclear event, or something like a meteor hit the planet. It could also have been the culmination of some environmental event. The man thinks it’s October, but he’s not sure, because there are no changes in the seasons anymore, and he says he hasn’t “kept a calendar for years,” which lets us know that things have been awful for a long time. He says each day is grayer, and it is getting colder, “as the world slowly dies.” He goes on to say that “No animals have survived, and all the crops are long gone.” If there is no future source for food the only option left is to scavenge for the little there is left to eat. What we are left with is the absence of hope for the future, not only for individuals, but for civilization in general.

What we see is a world that is a graveyard of its former self, littered with the rotted corpses of buildings and cars. The man says, “the roads are peopled by refugees towing carts,” as if today’s homeless people were a foreshadowing of what we all would become in the future. He also says there are “gangs carrying weapons,” as life has degenerated into a survival of the meanest. There are signs of a hellish madness taking hold, as he reports having heard “deranged chanting.”  There are ominous religious messages written on road billboards, literal and metaphorical “signs” of what is happening. The man says there has been cannibalism, which he said is the great fear, suggesting that it poses the main reason for killing others. Everything is reduced to being focused on the basics, such as getting food, avoiding the cold, and finding shoes since they have to keep walking to search for what they need to survive.

He tries to tell his son stories of “courage and justice,” using them as myths that encourage the urge to continue. He says the boy is his “warrant,” which suggests that it is a command issued by God to carry out fatherly duty. He says of his son, “if he is not the word of God, then God never spoke.” All of the man’s purpose is focused on taking care of his boy, or else there is nothing for him to live for, or to believe in. As he reads story books to his son there are shadows on their sleeping tent which appear like paintings on a prehistoric cave wall, as if the world has reversed its evolutionary progress.

They wake to forest fires, a hellish inferno that forces them to push on. They go to a barn, but they can’t find food there. They see family members that committed suicide by hanging. The boy asks why did they kill themselves, but the dad says his son knows why. The next scene is very dark, showing that suicide is the measure that must be considered if they want to prevent suffering in the end. The father shows that his gun contains a bullet for each of them. He demonstrates how to put the gun in the mouth and shoot upwards. He has spoken of this alternative before given the constant threat of either a gruesome or lingering death, but the boy is still shaken by the possibility.

There is a flashback to when the man’s wife was still alive, and pregnant. But she is despondent, crying out “what kind of life is this” in which to bring a child. So the boy has only known this dying, brutal world. The father and his son were sleeping in a car, but they hear a truck coming and hide in the woods as the truck overheats and the men riding in it stop. One of the gang members (Garret Dillahunt) goes off to urinate, but sees the two hiding. The father says he will kill the gang member if he says anything. The man thinks the father won’t pull the trigger and has never killed anyone. The gang member acts like they have food, but the father suspects not, and probably thinks they are cannibals. When the father is diverted by some noise from the truck, the gang member grabs the boy and puts a knife to his neck. The father shoots the man, but the boy is in shock and has blood on him. His fatherly dedication is evident as he picks up and carries his son away from the men. As they hide, he does hope that the boy will be able to pull that trigger if it comes to it. He later returns to the scene of where he shot the man and finds him decapitated, confirming his belief that the roving gang practiced cannibalism.

In another flashback, the man’s angry, dejected wife says they should not have waited until they only had two bullets. They should have killed themselves, because she believes, with all laws and decency no longer in force, that others will come to rape her and the boy, and then kill all three of them for food. He keeps saying he will do whatever it takes, but she doesn’t believe there is anything to be done. She is furious at him and says she should empty the bullets in herself and leave him with no option. She says there isn’t anything to talk about, and that her heart “was ripped from me the night he was born.” We have an upside-down world where hope for the future at the time of the birth of a child is replaced by despair due to the horror of the present. He says they will survive, but she counters with, “I don’t want to just survive.” The movie offers various ways to react to such a dire situation. In a possible dark reference to the Robert Frost poem, the ‘road” traveled on may be one of basic survival, another may be to try to hold onto the old ways as long as possible, and another might be to turn to suicide, to escape the inevitable, impending suffering and death that they all will face. The mother asks that she take their son with her. He says that she is crazy, but she points out that other families have chosen that option. She later bathes her son in an act that shows a yearning for a civilized world, but also symbolically represents a baptism to restore the innocence of a pre-fallen time. (The father’s washing of his son after he is bathed in the gang member’s blood also emphasizes the attempt to cleanse humankind’s sins).

In the present, the father says that it was necessary to shoot the gang member since there aren’t many good guys left. He says they have to keep carrying the “fire,” by which he means “the fire inside you.” The boy asks if they are the good guys, which the father says they are and always will be, implying that they will continue to carry that “light” which represents civilized humanity. The man brings the boy a treat, an unopened soda bottle, a great gift given the circumstances. But they are still hungry. They are heading south, for the coast. The boy still mentions his mother, but the father says they have to stop thinking about her, probably because he knows that the grief will just make them weak. But, conversely, it is also a part of the humanity he says they should hold onto. They are at a crossroads between retaining what makes them the “good guys” and letting those attributes go.

Despite what he preaches, the man can’t stop thinking about his wife. There is a flashback of her playing the piano, which stresses how music, and the arts in general, are elements that comprise a civilized society, and which point to what the wife meant by saying she didn’t want to “just survive.” The father stands on a bridge, representative of his being caught between letting the memory of his wife go and staying attached. He has a photograph of her and throws it off the bridge in a symbolic attempt to move on without her haunting him. There is a flashback of him pleading that she stay for one more night. She looks dead in her soul, and only says that they he and their son should go south since they won’t survive another winter. He says she went off to die “somewhere in the dark,” and there are no more tales to tell of her, suggesting stories cease when life ends. Back in the present, he leaves his wedding ring on the bridge, and says the “coldness” of her departure was her “last gift,” implying an emotional goodbye would have hurt more.

Father and son find another waterfall, and seeing the rainbow colors in the mist and taking their clothes off and experiencing the falling water provides an interlude of joy that they can share. (Again, we have water used as an image of washing away the evil of the earth, and the fact that they are heading south toward the ocean adds to the metaphor). They enter a house, but there are ominous signs there, including a collection of shoes and boots, a locked basement, large kettles outside, and a device with a meat hook on it. The man finds an axe and he breaks into a locked basement, hoping for some supplies, presumably thinking the house has been abandoned. They find emaciated people there, held hostage, and one says they will be taken to the “smokehouse.” So cannibalism is occurring here. It seems that lurking beneath the possibility of something positive is the reality of danger. The owners come back and the man and his boy hide upstairs where there are gruesome remnants of the peoples’ actions. The father, assuming they will be captured, realizes his son will not kill himself if the father is taken, so he is ready to shoot the boy first. But the homeowners are distracted by the people in the cellar trying to escape, and the boy and the father sneak out.

In the woods, they eat some roasted crickets and keep warm by a fire. The boy wants to be reassured that no matter how hungry they get, they won’t eat anybody. The father says they will never eat anyone, and they haven’t so far even though they are starving. The son says they are the good guys, and they are “carrying the fire,” which pleases the father, as the boy repeats what the father told him earlier, and the boy holds up a piece of wood with a flame, symbolizing the vow.

They return to the house where the man grew up. He shows his son where they used to place the Christmas tree and hang stockings. We feel sadness that the boy never had the joyful opportunity of celebrating holidays. The son says they shouldn’t be doing this, similar to how his father said they had to forget about the mother to move forward without sadness to defeat them. The child later believes he sees a young boy running around a building. The father chases his son and restrains him as the boy says he needs to find the other child. This scene shows the boy’s need for companionship and that he aches to be with someone his own age. He most likely was experiencing a hallucination created out of hope which still lives in the boy.

In his narration, the man says the boy hopes that he’ll find other children as they journey south toward the shore. The father probably just sees the journey as just something to do, a direction to go in a world without purpose. The boy asks about the father’s friends, and he tells them that they are all dead now, emphasizing that the father really has nothing to live for except to keep his son alive. He narrates that he just tries to “dream the dreams of a child’s imaginings.” He probably feels this way because future possibilities are the fuel which drives a youth forward in life. But the earth no longer offers no goals to head toward. The father is coughing often and the son asks if they are going to die now. The man tries to shed light on how things end for individuals that die of starvation, that it takes some time. In the narration he says he is trying to get the boy used to when he is gone since he admits to slowly dying, just like he earlier described what was happening to the earth.

The father says every day is a “lie,” since the body wants to survive, and it keeps looking for a chance to live another day, even though there is no point in the attempt. Alone, the father breaks down as the futility of his actions catches up with him. The boy calls to him and says he looked in a window of the abandoned house they are in and realized how “skinny” they look. Many times, the mind does not want to accept the cruel reality of what is happening. The father uncovers a piano in the house, and tries to play, again trying to resuscitate his past life with his wife, and a world that now no longer has music to inspire it.

Outside the house, the dad steps on a metal hatch door, which leads to an underground room. The boy remembers the cellar where those practicing cannibalism lived, and doesn’t want his father to go down the ladder. But, this time, the results are beneficial, reversing pessimism to optimism, and suggesting that one never knows what lies down “the road.” The father finds an underground shelter that has cans of food. The boy asks if it’s okay to take this food, since they are supposed to be the good guys, and are not thieves. The father says it’s okay, and paints it as an altruistic act of the former owners, so they should say a prayer of thanks. He covers the metal opening with an old mattress so nobody else will find the place. They eat and the boy sleeps. The father empties out his son’s belongings. Despite all of his attempts to forget his wife, he discovers one of her hair clips, reminding him of an evening out with his wife at a concert, another reference to a lost world of culture and refinement. 

In the house, just getting washed (more water baptismal imagery) with soap and shampoo, using toothpaste, and cutting their hair and his beard makes them feel human again. He smokes a cigarette which seems odd to the boy since it just makes the father cough more. He comments that his son probably thinks his father comes from another world, which the boy agrees. And in a way the father does, since it was a time “before,” when everything was different, and to which the boy cannot relate.

They hear a dog, which is surprising, since he noted earlier that no animals survived. The father anticipates that someone is with the dog, so the place is no longer safe. He says they must leave and take what they can. The boy, weary of being in fear and running all the time, says his dad is always negative, yet they found this place full of food. The father insists they leave and they find a large cart and fill it with supplies. Always in the background are rumblings, like the shifting of the earth in its deathbed.

They come across an old man (Robert Duvall), who can barely stand upright, and who uses a cane. He says he has nothing, and the father assures him they are not robbers. The boy wants to give the old man some food, but the father’s first response is negative. But the benevolence of the boy influences the father, and he eventually agrees to offering one can of food. The father anticipates his son asking that they take the old man with them, and again he initially says no. But, he relents again, and invites the old man to have dinner with them. 

The father is inquisitive about the age of the old man. He says he’s ninety, but the father believes that is what he says so people won’t hurt him. The old man says yes, and also acknowledges that others hurt him anyway, which shows that compassion is almost nonexistent now. After eating at a campfire, the old man says his name is Ely. It is significant that a very old man is the only person in the story with a name, suggesting that soon even individual identity will become extinct. Ely says when he saw the boy, he thought he saw an angel. He never thought he would see a child again. The father says his son is an angel, or more like a god to him. The old man finds that it’s sad that a god would be traveling on this road (the road to one’s death?), a sort of comment that even the gods have fallen prey to how horrible life has become. To stress the bleakness of their situation, Ely says that “if there is a God up there, he would have turned his back on us by now. And whoever made humanity will find no humanity here.” So he tells the father, “beware,” meaning there is no goodness left, and no God to rescue them. Ely says he saw this apocalypse coming, though many called it fake, which points to those being in denial, even in the face of scientific facts, who reject the truth for psychological, or possibly selfish reasons. The father asks if Ely ever wished he would die? The old man says no, and in a bit of dark humor, adds, “It’s foolish to ask for luxuries in times like these.” Death would be a gift and there is only a purgatory that one must endure now.

Ely leaves them, and the boy points out that the old man is going off to die (reminiscent of what happened to his mother) and says the father doesn’t care. The father reminds the boy that when the two of them run out of food he’ll think about things differently as to why they must tend to themselves first. But the son says the old man was not a bad person and now the father can’t even tell the difference between the good guys and the bad ones. The father only feels an obligation toward his son in the long run, while the son thinks in the short term that they can be generous. The peril that the father speaks of is emphasized in the next scene as they see footprints in the snow and hide as men hunt a mother and daughter. As they flee this danger they encounter another as there are more earth tremors and trees begin to uproot and fall, almost crushing them.

By now the father’s coughing is increasing. He says in the narrative that when one has bad dreams, one still has fear, which means a person continues to want to live. When one has good dreams, one is giving up, which means that in this inverted place, good dreams are bad omens. When they finally get to a southern beach, the father says he’s sorry the water is no longer blue, the drainage of color mirroring the absence of the old world’s beauty. The boy asks if there is anything on the other side of the sea. The father at first says there’s nothing, but then pulls back from his nihilism by saying there may be a father and son sitting on a beach on the other side of the ocean. The boy has a fever and throws up. It then storms, adding to the gloominess. The boy asks the father what would he do if the boy died? The man says he wouldn’t want to live, and confirms the boy’s statement that he would die so he could be with his son in death. The father here confirms that, for him, there is no point in existing without his son, the only connection he has to being human.

The father discovers a shipwrecked boat not far off the beach and tries to swim to get some supplies. While the boy slept, a thief (Michael Kenneth Williams) came by and took all their supplies. The father grabs the boy and goes after the robber, who looks in poor health himself. The man has a knife, and is at first defiant. But the father threatens him with the gun. He then throws down his knife. The father tells the thief to take off all his clothes and put them in the cart. Although the boy pleads for the man’s life and wants to be generous, the father, in a sort of Old Testament “eye for an eye” justice, says the thief would have left them with nothing. He warns his son how he won’t be around forever to protect him, and he has to learn how to survive. The boy’s response is that he doesn’t “want to learn,” what the father is teaching him if it amounts to being cruel toward others. He is echoing, even though he didn’t actually hear it, what his mother said about how just surviving is not enough.

The boy says the man was so afraid, but the father says he is afraid, too. He tells his son he is the one who has to worry about everything. But the boy yells that he is the one who must worry. In a way the boy, carrying “the fire,” is the conscience of humanity, so that is why he must worry about everything. He convinces the father to go back and leave some clothes and food for the man if he shows up where they left him.

Near some houses, hope seems to appear as they find a beetle and see a bird flying in the sky. But, as if to undermine that feeling of optimism, the father is wounded by an arrow coming out of a house window. The father shoots into the window and we hear groans. He gets inside the house and sees that he killed the man who shot at him, and the man’s female companion curses the father. People shoot first, and don’t even ask questions later. It is interesting that the father, Ely, the thief, and now this woman all ask why were they following each other. But nobody is hunting anyone; they are all just suspicious of everyone as fear of others has replaced all feelings of community.

The father pulls the arrow from his leg as he yells in agony. Because of his failing health, he can’t drag the wagon anymore. He looks at the water and remembers being in a car with his wife as she rested by the sea. (The flashbacks of happier times are full of brightness and color). In his narrative, he says if he were God he wouldn’t have made it any different so he could have “you,” as he thinks of his wife and then he looks at his son. Despite the hell that has been visited upon the earth, the father would not change anything since he is still grateful for the love for his family. The boy gives him water and keeps him warm. The father says he doesn’t know what will be “down the road.” In the end, “the road” is all there is left. He gives his son the gun, tells him to continue to head south, look for the good guys, but be on guard. The boy doesn't want him to leave and asks that he take him, too. The father thought he could end their lives together because he promised not to leave his son alone. But he can’t do it. Declaring his love for his son, even in such adverse times, he tells his boy that he always had his father’s “whole heart.”

After the father dies, the boy takes the gun. A man, carrying what looks like a military rifle, and is called the Veteran in the script (Guy Pearce), walks toward the boy along the shore. He has lost some fingers (in a battle, which shows he is a warrior who has the ability to protect?). After he finds out that the father is dead, he says the boy can come with him. The man has a wife and a boy and a girl. He says he doesn’t eat people, and says, yes, he is one of the good guys. Even though he must guess at what the boy is saying, he says that he tries to carry the “fire.” The family has a dog, the one they heard near the shelter filled with food. The Motherly Woman (Molly Parker), the Veteran’s female companion, appears with the couple’s son and daughter, children his own age who he longed to connect with. The Motherly Woman, contrary to what the others declared, says they were following the boy and his father. But, they were doing so only to look after him in case the father could no longer care for the boy. They are like guardian angels. The boy asks how does he know if the Veteran is a good guy. The Veteran says the boy will just have “to take a shot.” The phrase contains feelings of trust and suspicion. But, the boy, carrying that “fire,” opts for optimism. Here is where humanity still exists, in the hope and faith in each other.

After a Labor Day break, the next film is Milk.

Recent Films

I thought I would write some brief impressions of recent films. A version of these summaries appeared on the Facebook page for my recent novel, The Bigger Picture.

Leave No Trace is an independent movie that reminds one of Captain Fantastic released a few years back about a father keeping his family off of the grid. In this more somber new story, the focus is on a war veteran with PTSD who has raised his daughter in the woods because he no longer can function in society. The mainstream world seems restrictive and intrusive in this film, but there are those among the victims who try to help each other on the outskirts of civilization. Good acting and very involving.

Before seeing Hereditary I was expecting an interesting psychological and scary portrait of a warped family. It was that, but the movie was slow at the beginning, and did not engage my attention. There were huge gaps in the plot that didn't even attempt to shed light on the crazy actions that were occurring until a feeble bit of explanation was made at the end. I really can't recommend this one.

I looked forward to seeing The Equalizer II since I enjoyed the first entry in this series, and, again, Denzel Washington delivers. Has this actor ever been less than excellent? Yes, the film has the usual amount of violence and mayhem that we see in action movies. Here, however, the story takes the time to show supporting characters who are struggling to make their lives better despite the punishing realities they must face. There is the alcoholic trying to stay sober, the Holocaust survivor searching for a long lost relative, and the youth with artistic talent being sucked into the gang culture in his neighborhood. Washington's character, who has suffered the loss of people he loves, is a control freak, lining up his fruit in formation and constantly checking his watch to make sure he meets his self-imposed time limits. But, there is one scene where his inner demons break loose, and we see that he is as tortured as those he tries to help. There is an actual hurricane in the movie (and Washington starred in the film The Hurricane). It is symbolic of the uncontrollable forces that seem to batter all of us on the outside and also on the inside.

If you want action, great stunts, digital or otherwise, Mission Impossible: Fallout delivers. It would help to have seen previous entries in this series concerning the characters, but it is not essential. There are many plot twists, maybe too many, because it is not easy to follow all of the scams being perpetrated. But, the plot keeps the audience alert with its many surprises.

I was skeptical of how successful the remake of Murder on the Orient Express would be. The plot in the newer version was changed enough to make it interesting to watch even if you saw the earlier Sidney Lumet directed movie. The cast was good, but it didn't top the previous one headed by Albert Finney as Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot with Ingrid Bergman’s Best Supporting Actress Oscar performance. If you haven't watched the first one, try viewing it and then compare it to the recent one. Then, decide for yourselves which you prefer.

I noticed that the movie Tully came out on DVD. If you get a chance to see this movie, it's well worth it. Charlize Theron is great in this film, and should get an Oscar nomination. The film does not idealize motherhood, showing how tough modern times are on being a female parent. If you're observant, you'll see the plot twist that will come at the end of the story.

BlacKkKlansman is a powerful film that gets its message across using humor mixed with deadly serious drama. Spike Lee is not a subtle filmmaker, but he is a very accomplished one. The thrust here is story and theme, not character development. He uses his movie history knowledge to comment on how racism in the motion picture industry has existed since the original "Birth of a Nation," through the Tarzan films, and in the stereotypes portrayed in  Shaft and Super Fly. This story is based on an almost unbelievable true story about a black policeman who infiltrates the KKK on the phone, and then sends a white cop to meetings in person to be his alter ego. Lee uses phrases such as "America first," and the desire to start another "Tea Party," as ways of connecting the story to current times. He shows how the white supremacists used fear of immigrants to further their cause, obviously making a reference to recent events. In the end, he uses footage of the Charlottesville, VA riot to cement his argument that racism has a long and unhealthy history in the USA.

Maybe you haven't heard of the recent film Eighth Grade, but it received great critical response, and rightly so. Those middle years have always been rough for unpopular or socially-challenged youths. This movie brings that struggle up to the current day when cell phones and social media play a part, for better and for worse. The main character basically talks to herself through supposedly shared video posts. She is really revealing her true nature below the shy exterior shown in public. Through these posts, she is actually urging herself to come out of her shell and make more of her life. The movie also shows when adults don’t act their age, trying to relate to kids by using youthful words and actions, they come off looking lame.

The Meg is what a friend of mine would call a “no zzz movie.” There is so much action that if you fell asleep during this one, you should check yourself into a narcolepsy clinic. Jason Statham plays a wisecracking testosterone-fueled character (you expected something else?), as he reluctantly gets involved in saving others from the prehistoric supersized shark that humans released from under an ice covered ocean bottom natural aquarium. It’s sort of payback for science messing too much with mother nature. Good special effects, but no real character development. Probably the fourth best shark film I have seen after Jaws (of course), The Shallows, and Deep Blue Sea. Actually, fifth best if you include Open Water, but that’s more about abandonment than sharks. Because of another recent film, when I saw the shark attacking eastern tourists at an upscale beach, I thought of a mash-up: Crazy, Rich Tasty Asians.

I was just watching Schindler’s List again for my next post. It was interesting to see Ben Kingsley portray a Jewish business manager helping Jews escape occupied Poland in that film, and then watch him in the polar opposite role of the Nazi Adolf Eichmann in Operation Finale. I remember as a child watching excerpts of the trial of Eichmann on television, showing him housed in a bulletproof transparent cage in the courtroom. It was the only time I saw a Nazi who was involved in the Holocaust, and it was chilling to see him even at an early age. The recent film references Eichmann’s role of being in charge of transporting Jewish prisoners to ghettos and concentration camps for eventual extermination. Israeli agents, headed by one played by Oscar Isaac, go to Argentina (whose compromised law enforcement departments protected the Nazis) to extract Eichmann, not assassinate him. The goal was to have the world witness his trial and remember the atrocities that Hitler’s Germany inflicted on millions. The best scenes are between Kingsley and Isaac, as Eichmann tries to present himself as not really believing in the “superior race” concept, since none of the Nazi leaders looked Aryan, including the dark-haired Hitler. He also argues that he actually tried to save some Jews. One flaw in the film is that it doesn’t deliver on the danger built up surrounding what might happen to the Israeli agents if they didn’t get on the plane to Israel with Eichmann. Also, Argo is more effective in dramatizing a real life escape from a hostile country, and the fictional film The Debt is more intense and dramatically satisfying depicting a similar story of Israeli agents capturing a Nazi criminal and trying to bring him to justice.

The next film to be analyzed is Schindler’s List.

North Country

SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

Given the current consciousness raising concerning the mistreatment and empowerment of women inspired by the #MeToo movement, this 2005 film directed by Niki Caro deserves a closer look. (Also, this topic is of personal importance to me, since I have written about it before, and it will be the central theme in my upcoming novel, The Bigger Picture, a mystery that focuses on the depiction of women’s sexuality in movies).

The main character in this story is Josey Aimes (Charlize Theron, in an Oscar-nominated performance). The first name suggests the feminine version of a regular “Joe” (you know, like “Joe the Plumber”), someone who is a regular blue collar worker, trying to make ends meet. “Aimes” can indicate a person who takes “aim” at those who contribute to and allow an unjust system that represses and harms her because she is a woman who wants to make a living in the traditionally male dominated iron mining industry. (One could argue that Theron’s own personal history made her particularly sensitive to male abuse and female retaliation, since her father was a dangerous alcoholic who was killed by Theron’s mother).

We are told that the film takes place in 1989 in Northern Minnesota, and that the first time a woman became a mine worker was in 1975. But, even after thirteen years, the ratio of miners was still thirty to one in favor of the males. The script is based on the true story centering on Lois Jenson who sued the Eveleth Mines for sexual harassment. The first shot in the film is of a very young girl at Christmas, which is supposed to be a joyous time, one of wonder and innocence for children. But, the girl, Karen (Elle Peterson), is playing with a Barbie doll, which shows how society starts early in trying to program females to focus on their appearance to attract men. The merry season is dashed by a car which approaches Josey’s house, obviously driven by someone who is drunk. The scowl on Josey’s face wordlessly tells us that her man is behind the wheel. We next see Josey on the kitchen floor, blood on her face, which we know came from her husband hitting her. Even though we witness these scenes, most of the events are in the past, and Josey describes them in a courtroom (although up until the end, some of what is depicted involves internal flashbacks in Josey’s mind triggered by current abuse).

The Pearson company which owns the iron mine has strategically hired a woman lawyer, Leslie Conlin (Linda Emond), who is questioning Josey. After the assault by her husband, she left with Karen and Sammy (Thomas Curtis), her early teenage son. Josey drives through the “north country” in winter, which seems to mirror the symbolically emotionally cold environment she will encounter in her new home. But, Josey tells Conlin, she “did what I had to do” to survive, which meant not calling the cops about her husband, because presumably that would just have meant more dealings with conspiring men. When Conlin addresses her as “Mrs.” Josey says “There’s no Mrs. here,” which shows she wants to free herself of the necessity of counting on the unreliable and painful attachment to a man. But her new start didn’t provide the liberty she sought. She tells the attorney that Conlin doesn’t know how tough life is “in the pitt,” which is a literal and figurative description of what Josey and other women miners have had to endure.

In a flashback, Josey arrives at the home of her parents. Her father, Hank (the superb Richard Jenkins), instead of considering his daughter’s side of the story, automatically assumes the bruises on Josey’s face resulted in her husband finding out that she cheated on him. There are also judgmental looks at a church service aimed at Josey because of the gossip that she is promiscuous, the double sexual standard being in full force here. At a Catholic Holy Communion reception, (the belief in the Christian attitude of good will to others contrasts with just the opposite behavior in this place), women comment about how Josie was always beautiful, as if that is the most important female attribute, and one which creates envy among other women who may excel more in other areas, but are not admired for those strengths. So, they gossip how Josey is nothing but trouble for her parents, as Josey’s mother, Alice (Sissy Spacek) pretends not to overhear. At the bar, Hank talks to another man who says marriage problems are ironed out by going “out to the shed,” which is where you hit kids in the past to discipline them. He admits that his wife left him several times, and that’s how they worked out the “kinks” in the relationship. This short scene shows how these men see violence as an intrinsic part of a marriage. It’s like a battleground for them.

Josey gets a job at a hair salon, and meets an old friend, Glory (Frances McDormand) there. They become reacquainted, and the dialogue between them is revealing. Josey shows her surprise when she learns that Glory drives a truck at the mine. She has been programmed to think a woman would only do secretary work at a place populated by men. When Glory jokingly asks if Josey left her husband because she found out that he was wearing ladies underwear, Josey says isn’t “wife beating” reason enough? It’s as if violence toward women is accepted in a marriage, but the non-threatening activity of cross-dressing is the real perversion. Glory informs Josey that there are openings at the mine, and the pay there is much better than that of a hairdresser. Josey wants to be independent and the fact that Glory performs a job that was traditionally assumed to be only for men inspires Josey to apply.

When her father hears about Josey working at the mine, he asks her if she wants to be a lesbian now. The prejudicial assumption is that a woman doing a physically demanding job must be more sexually male than female. Hank also says that there have been more accidents at the mine lately, and he blames that fact on the perception that women can’t handle the workload. This is a priori reasoning, where you make an unsubstantiated assumption, and then only look for evidence exclusive of all others to justify a belief.

There are more cuts to the courtroom where Conlin asks who is Sammy’s father. Josey says she doesn't know. By stating ignorance surrounding the paternity of her son, Josey comes off as being promiscuous. But, the real reason, we learn later, is that she is ashamed to admit a childhood assault. Here we get personal flashbacks of Josey when she was in high school, where a boy approaches her and grabs her butt. She smiles, because this behavior was considered permissible as an acknowledgment of physical attractiveness, the predominate way a girl was valued, as opposed to being condemned as a violation. We then witness a lascivious look on the face of a teacher as he watches the two students.

Speaking of violations, Josey, and other potential female mine workers, must undergo a gynecological examination to make sure they are not pregnant before starting their employment. It’s as if the traditional role of motherhood precludes employment in the manly world of the mines. We jump back to the courtroom where Conlin says that Josey freely submitted to the examination, but, it was more like forced submission. Josey rightly tells Conlin she didn’t have to have an internal examination before joining her law firm, which stresses that some types of employers remained unevolved.

Josey’s mom, Alice, reflects her programmed sexism when she tells her daughter that each person has a circumscribed role to play in society. Josey should be a mother and she will shame her father by working at the mine, implying that Josey is defying the natural order by seeking work that should be reserved for men. After this confrontation, Josey moves in with Glory and her husband, Kyle (Sean Bean). Kyle no longer works at the mine after being injured. He is supportive of Glory, and his delicate work with watches shows that he does not need a machismo-infused job to define his manliness.

Glory advises Josey that she can’t be a “cowgirl” while working at the mine, but has to be a “cowboy.” Glory is a union representative and plays ball with the men in order to get some concessions for the women workers. (When she gets port-a-potties for the women and one of the men suggestively asks what do the men get, she has to participate in their raunchy humor by saying they get discounted blow-jobs). Women have come across this problem when working in many professions that were exclusive to men. They are forced to play by the rules that men created, and sometimes must submerge their feminine identity and act like men. This capitulation amounts to a gender surrender.

There are numerous incidents that show sexual harassment and abuse in the film. Some critics have said the movie is heavy-handed. The fact is that the filmmakers had to leave some of the incidents out because there were so many. The Human Resources representative, Arlen Pavich (Xander Berkeley), flat out tells the women that he and the other men don’t want the women there because the job is dirty and physically demanding, and the mine is no place for a woman. But, the Supreme Court ruled against job discrimination, so they have been forced to employ the women. He says to Josey that he was told by the doctor that she looks good under the work clothes. Pavich then lectures the women that they must play along with that type of joking, and have a sense of humor to survive there. Of course that view perpetuates debasement of women under the guise of humor. It would not be tolerated if a person’s religion or ethnicity were openly ridiculed in the workplace. The men here create a hostile work environment (which later becomes the definition for sexual harassment) because, as Pavich says, more steel is imported at cheaper prices, which has compromised American factories, and led to layoffs. The men see the women as taking their jobs, and want them to stay in the homes to take care of the children and do domestic chores, thus keeping the females under their economic thumbs (The Handmaid’s Tale anyone?). So, they write derogatory sexual comments on the women’s locker room and bathroom, make lewd comments, grope them, leave semen on their clothes, and even lock one in a port-a potty, knocking it over and immersing the woman in human waste. After one of the women finds a huge rubber penis in her lunchbox, Josey says “It won’t leave the toilet seat up. It won’t fart in bed. I might just marry it.” Her humorous preference for an inanimate object shows how disappointing actual males have become in her life.

Josey’s primary sexual harasser is Bobby Sharp, (Jeremy Renner). Bobby is the boy who grabbed young Josey’s behind in her flashback. He requests that she be his assistant in the “powder room,” a particularly filthy place that has the euphemistic name for a woman’s bathroom, where the female employees, despite being in “manly” jobs, are told they must do what women do, which is clean up. There are some men who do not approve of their co-workers actions, including Ricky, (Corey Stoll), who intervenes when the abuse gets really oppressive. But, he is sarcastically called a “Boy Scout” by the men, which shows that even the enlightened males working at the mine are intimidated into falling into line with the anti-female agenda. (Later in a bar, Josey dances with Ricky and asks him if he is a “nice” man, which seems to be a type of person that she has found to be rare in her life). Glory tells Josey she just has to take what the men have to “dish out” if she wants to keep her job. And, Josey, who now has a place of her own and can take her kids out for a nice meal, does appreciate the independence that a decent wage can bring her. She admits that for the first time she actually feels like she is “living.”

At the local bar where the miners unwind, Josey and the female workers enjoy an evening together with the male employees also present. This scene shows the complexity of male-female interactions. Glory’s husband, Kyle, is at the bar with a friend, Bill White (Woody Harrelson), an attorney, and ex- hockey star (showing him to be a man of brains and brawn) who has returned from New York following his divorce. He reveals his hurt ego, and sexist bias, when he complains to Kyle that the judge ordered his wife to pay him alimony. Why has he returned to this town? Possibly to get a testosterone transfusion because he feels less manly since his ex-spouse makes more money than he does? One of the inebriated miners, angered by Kyle and Glory giving Josey a place to stay, accuses Kyle of helping Josey just so he can have a “three-way.” For this man, the sexual component is the only way he understands how men relate to women. Bill, trying to be the peacemaker, gets between the other two men, but his evolved, reasoning side becomes undermined in the heat of the moment, and he winds up punching the drunk worker out, reverting to the macho side of his personality. Glory wants to set Bill up with Josey, but he is romantically gun-shy at the moment, after being wounded by the break up of his marriage, and unsure of his role as a man at the moment. One of the women miners, Sherry (Michelle Monaghan, in one of her early roles), a bit under the influence, comes onto the more senior Bill. He awkwardly says that he has “underwear” older than she is. Sherry, being a young, attractive woman, has been brought up thinking that her sexuality is the only weapon in her feminine arsenal, and to have it rejected is very disarming. She lashes out, and questions Bill’s heterosexuality. So she, too, reduces the male-female dynamic to one of sexuality.

At work, Bobby lies to Josey about a conveyor belt being clogged so he can get her way up at the elevated end of the mechanism, isolated. The height is symbolic of the dangerous precipice on which she finds herself by trying to shake up the masculine system. After he orders the operator to start up the machinery, the deafening sound would drown out a person’s yells. Bobby presses himself against Josey and says that they should kiss and make up. She struggles and he lets her go, but he seems to not understand why she is so resistant to him, given their time in high school together. There is a cut back to the courtroom, and we see that Bill became Josey’s lawyer. Pavich, the Human Resources worker, is on the stand and says that Josey was just paranoid and there was no evidence that would make him take action when she reported harassment to him. Pavich says that a man will always try to cross the line when it comes to sexual abuse, and it’s the job of the woman to smack him back over that line. His testimony accepts the notion that “boys will be boys,” and absolves males from responsibility for their actions, as if they have no control over their drives. He places the burden on the women to defend themselves, even though men have rigged the rules so that they have the social and economic power to force their will on the female population.

In the background the film displays on televisions the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas sexual harassment proceedings. This element shows that the unfair exertion of male power over women not only exists in a remote mining town but also at the level of the Supreme Court, which is supposed to represent the highest standard for justice. Alice turns the TV off in the Aimes home, an act that implies that Josey’s mother feels that fighting gender abuse is hopeless. She says that Anita Hill’s action has only brought harm to Thomas’ family, so she does not feel sympathy for him, but her worry is for his wife and children. At this point she feels the same way about Josey, as does Hank, as they both believe that Josey is stirring up trouble by working at the mine and complaining about the men’s behavior, when there is no way to change the way things are. Josey tells her dad that she works just as hard as he does and she deserves her earnings. When he questions that she is saying that she is the same as him, she says no, because she has to perform her duties while being constantly harassed and worrying about being raped.

Those at the forefront of struggles against unfairness and oppression usually suffer the most because they are the first in the line of fire when the entrenched system is still powerful and exerts its resistance to change. Josey’s actions have their fallout. Her son, Sammy, loves hockey, but the boys won’t pass him the puck because the players’ fathers have told them not to do so in retaliation against Josey’s charges. At a hockey game, Bobby’s wife, after he’s told her lies about what is actually happening at the mine, publicly shouts at Josey, accusing her of trying to seduce her husband. This open attack slanders Josey, and undermines her complaints by spreading gossip (the precursor to social media bullying) and making it appear that Josey is the sexual predator. Sammy, at a very vulnerable age when it comes to peer pressure, blames his mother, calling her a “whore.” He feels the pressure of the status quo bearing down on him, and quits the hockey team. He blames Josey, and says that a mother should stay at home, and cook and clean.

The women mine workers are split concerning Josey’s urging for them to be vocal about the sexual harassment. Sherry, who is the victim in the port-a-potty incident, hates the treatment, but needs the job to take care of her sick mother. Peg (Jillian Armenante) is the most resistant to Josey, and later denies on the stand that there was misconduct against the women, despite the fact we see that the men have written under her operating booth references to charging for oral sex. To justify her opposition, Peg buys into the male explanation for “crossing” that harassment line, which is that women are “asking for it,” of which she accuses Sherry. It is like blaming the victim for causing the crime instead of accusing the perpetrator. Big Betty (Rusty Schwimmer) is more sympathetic to the cause. But, no woman is willing to accompany Josey to her meeting with the big boss, Don Pearson (James Cada), who earlier encountered Josey at a restaurant and was encouraging about coming to him if she had any problems. In the meeting, Pearson has three other men with him, including Pavich who already has told Josey she has raised no “legitimate” issues. The room full of men is meant to be intimidating, immediately communicating to Josey who has the power. Pearson shuts her down quickly, saying that since she is so unhappy in her job he will waive the two-week notice period and she can quit immediately. Josey is stunned by how Pearson turns out to be just as hostile as the male workers, again showing how pervasive is the anti-female attitude. She says she needs the job. Pearson then cruelly says she should stop wasting time stirring up the other women and spending time in the beds of co-workers (thus joining in on the slander about her sexual behavior).

The final straw for Josey again occurs in the “powder room” when Bobby literally knocks her down, jumps on her, and grabs her by the crotch. He says to her that she likes “that,” which hints at his wanting to believe that she is sexually available. She breaks away and later confronts Bobby in the cafeteria, now calling him out in public, mirroring what happened to her at the hockey game. But, she is in the right, and refuses to keep the harassment silent, as the other women have. One of the men says that Bobby was with him all day, and even Ricky, although appalled, won’t stand up for Josey, which shows how the status quo hinders the men who oppose sexual abuse from speaking up. Big Betty allows Josey to take her car to go home, and Josey announces that she quits.

Josey asks Bill to sue the mining company. He tells her at first to forget about it. The defense will use the “nuts and sluts” defense, which means they discredit a woman’s claims by either depicting her as deranged, imagining wrong deeds, or else saying that the woman was seductive and encouraged the sexually aggressive male activity. Bill demonstrates the attitude of the times by saying she is beautiful, and Josey knows that he means she can get a man to take care of her. But, Josey’s been through that, and she tells Bill now she wants to take care of herself and her children. Later, after sharing a drink with Kyle, Bill notices all of the animal heads mounted on the walls of the bar. On the one hand, it points to the male desire to validate their manliness by gathering trophies, which extends to the sexual arena. But, on the other hand, Bill realizes that animals are safer in a herd than if they try to go it alone. He tells Josey that he will represent her if they can enlist other women and pursue a class action sexual harassment suit, which has never been done before.

Glory has developed ALS, and her condition deteriorates. Even though she no longer is an employee, she shows up at a union meeting to still be useful in trying to negotiate solutions to some of the problems brought about by Josey’s actions. Again, the intimidating all male gathering politely dismisses her, since now she is no longer a force to be reckoned with. Back in the courtroom, the judge (John Aylward) tells Bill that he will consider his case to be a class action suit if he can get three plaintiffs. Josey approaches Glory later in her hospital room to join the lawsuit, but Glory is so bitter, she dismisses Josey. The company’s lawyer, Conlin, aggressively tries to pressure Glory to state that there was no sexual harassment, even threatening to subpoena the dying woman, which shows to what lengths the company will go to not change their policies. Pearson is even condescending to his own female attorney, saying that he hired her, not because she is the best lawyer, just the best woman attorney, so it appears that he is fair toward women. But he tells her that there are certain jobs, like being a football player or a miner, that are not meant for women. Conlin points out the repercussions of a legal loss. The company has no insurance against “punitive damages,” and a negative ruling means paid leave for pregnancies and the implementation of new sexual harassment policies, which will affect all businesses. Pearson says they will win by depicting Josey as a woman of low morals. Conlin brings in Bobby to get some dirt on Josey so she can present her as a woman with a sordid past.

Alice brought money to Josey to help her now that she is unemployed. When Hank finds out he says he worked hard for that money, but Alice says that so does she. She tells her husband how much would he owe her if she charged him for all the loads of laundry she washed. Hank, still giving lip service to the loose morals argument against his daughter because all of his co-workers plead innocence to him, says that Josey brought shame onto the family. Alice is now angry, and tells him his daughter just had a baby outside of a marriage, she didn’t rob a bank. Her statement points out how unfairly punitive is the gender double standard’s condemnation of women’s sexual activity. Alice, now feeling the need to protect her daughter and lend her support, takes a room at a motel because she can’t abide her husband’s failure to defend his daughter.

The union members have a meeting, which is stoked by a speech by Bobby which urges exoneration of the male workers and praises the women miners for not joining Josey’s lawsuit. Josey arrives with Bill and courageously tries to address the crowd. The men are loudly sexually abusive. Hank finally gets up and tells the gathering that Josey has the right to speak. Hank takes the microphone and tells the workers that he was a miner all of his life, “And I’ve never been ashamed of it until now.” He points out that words like “bitches” and “whores” were never used when they took their daughters and wives to the company picnic. The implication here is that as long as the women stayed in their designated roles, they were exempt from scorn. Hank says some of the words shouted and written at work, and the grabbing of the women’s “privates,” are acts so bad that he deems them “unspeakable.” He indicts the men and praises his daughter when he says, “You’re all supposed to be my friends, my brothers. Well, right now I don’t have a friend in this room. In fact the only one I’m not ashamed of is my daughter.” These words show how Hank has reversed what is shameful: it’s not his daughter’s past, but instead it is the the oppressive sexism of the men. The changes in the behavior of Alice and Frank may be too abrupt in the script, but that fact does not diminish the power of their acts and words.

In order to negate the legitimacy of Josey’s claims, Bobby told Conlin that Josey has always been promiscuous, even having sexual relations with a high school teacher. Conlin brings the teacher, Paul Latavansky, (Brad William Henke) into the courtroom. On the stand, Josey now shares what were her private memories. The teacher, the one previously seen with the lewd look on his face, caught young Josey and Bobby drinking alcohol and kissing, and brought them in for detention. After dismissing Bobby, the teacher raped Josey in the classroom. Josey saw that Bobby could see that the teacher violently pressed her, crying, against the windowed classroom door, but the young boy ran away from the scene. Sammy is the teacher’s son, and Josey kept it a secret. She was like most young people who are sexually assaulted, who wonder why such a horrible thing happened to them. Were they at fault? They are made to feel ashamed and don’t want to reveal the attack, afraid they will be blamed, which is especially how girls have been made to feel. And, they feel powerless to blame an adult for a wrongdoing. After finally hearing the secret that Josey has been keeping about the assault, Hank goes after Latavansky, and is restrained and removed from the courtroom. There are no witnesses to verify Josey’s version of what happened, so Conlin argues that the testimony is self-serving.

Sammy doesn’t want to believe that he is the child of a rapist, and not the son of a soldier who died in the war, which is what Josey had told him to shield him from the truth. While hanging out with Glory’s husband, Kyle, Sammy says his mother is just a whore who is lying so she can win her case. Kyle says that Sammy can accept the truth because his mother could have put him up for adoption, but didn’t, and took care of him, was proud of him, and always went to his hockey games. Sammy goes home and Josey is honest with him about not initially wanting him after the assault. But once she felt him move inside of her, she knew that he belonged to her, not her rapist. She assures him that none of the ugliness that was part of his conception attached itself to Sammy.

It is difficult to accept harsh truths when it is easier lie to oneself and cover up terrible acts. Which is what Bobby did. He couldn’t stand the guilt of not helping Josey when she was being raped, so he rewrote history to put the blame on Josey, and labeled her a slut. When Bill gets Bobby on the stand he uses the rough sport of hockey as a metaphor to break down Bobby’s defenses by saying a real man must bleed, suffer, in order to show his courage. By impugning his masculinity if he doesn’t show courage and tell the truth, Bill gets Bobby to finally admit that Josey was raped. He didn’t report the attack because, he says sobbing, “what was I supposed to do?” Bill sums up the problem and the difficulty of the solution presented by the movie. He says, “What are you supposed to do when the ones with all the power are hurting those with none? Well, for starters, you stand up.” In the back of the courtroom, Glory is there, unable to speak, but making a rattling noise. She has prepared a statement which Kyle reads, and which announces that she’s “not dead yet,” and that she stands with Josie. One by one, many in the courtroom stand up, including some of the women workers, Josey’s parents, and some male miners. Josey has her class action suit.

The ending has Bill giving Sammy some hockey pointers, and we hear that Josey has won the case. The last shot is of Josey showing Sammy how to drive. She is now the one in control of the road ahead of her. A message informs us that in the real case, there was a modest financial settlement, but sexual harassment policy was established to protect the current women workers, and those that followed.

It is important to see where progressive change sprang from and the courageous sacrifice made by many to achieve justice. But this case ended in 1998, after a fourteen year struggle. And, as we see in the headlines daily, sexual abuse of women has continued for many years after the end of this case, carried out by unscrupulous men in the very industry that produced this film, and at all levels of government. We must continue to, as Bill says in the film, “stand up” to make a difference.

The next film is Norma Rae.