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Theron, Karo deliver powerful message in 'North Country'

"North Country" is the most riled-up movie of the year. Set in 1989 in the harsh, chilly mining culture of upstate Minnesota, it's the story of the first class-action sexual harassment suit ever filed in the United States. And, no, it wasn't filed by disgruntled lady lawyers or beleaguered military women. The plaintiffs in the case were the female employees at a North Country iron mine where males outnumbered them 30 to 1.

Working in the mine isn't exactly Josey Aimes' (Charlize Theron) idea of a dream job. But when her old friend Glory (Frances McDormand) tells her she can make six times what she does in the local hair salon, Josey applies for her hard hat.

Warner Brothers Pictures 'North Country' A- The verdict: Powerhouse movie. Powerhouse performances. Director: Niki Caro Starring: Charlize Theron, Frances McDormand, Sissy Spacek, Woody Harrelson, Sean Bean Release date: Oct. 14, 2005 Rating: R for sequences involving sexual harassment including violence and dialogue, and for language. See showtimes On the web Official movie site View the trailer    Trailers require Quicktime [an error occurred while processing this directive]

Along with it come some cold, hard facts. She isn't wanted in the mine. No women are. Not only is it the kind of work they shouldn't be doing, goes the thinking, they're taking jobs away from men with families to support (never mind that Josey has two kids herself).

But Josey is used to dealing with men who don't wish her well. She's returned to her hometown to escape an abusive husband.

Arriving on her parents' doorstep with her children, she's lovingly welcomed by her mom, Alice (Sissy Spacek). Her father, Hank (Richard Jenkins), is a different story. He greets her with the sneering question, "He find you in bed with another man?"

Meanwhile, up at the mine, Josey soon learns her co-workers play rough. "Sense of humor, ladies," trills their supervisor. But the "pranks" quickly escalate: A sex toy in a lunch box. Fumbling gropes under the guise of "just doing their job." Obscenities scrawled in feces on the women's changing room walls. And worse. Finally, there's a physical attack that comes close to attempted rape.

Take it like a man, the women are told. And finally one day, when she realizes the company execs are the same as the miners, only with better shoes, Josey does take it like a man.

She takes them to court.

Her lawyer, Bill White (Woody Harrelson, subdued and slyly funny), is a friend of Glory's and doesn't take the case because he believes in feminist principles. He takes it because it's a legal precedent and he'd like the recognition.

Scenes of the trial are interspersed with action at the mine. It initially seems jarring, but then you realize the trial and the ugliness on the job are part of the same theme. Before she's hired, Josey is forced to undergo a gynecological examination; nobody looked at the men's privates. The trial runs along the same lines. Just as Jodie Foster showed us in "The Accused," what's on trial here isn't how the men behaved, but how Josey behaves. Doesn't she have a son out of wedlock? How many men has she slept with? It's the same ol' she-was-asking-for-it defense used in rape trials.

Director Niki Caro is no stranger to issues of community and a woman's place in it. Her previous movie was the acclaimed "Whale Rider," which earned an Oscar nomination for Keisha Castle-Hughes as an adolescent bucking tradition.

Here, Caro has a trio of Oscar winners to work with and she's not in the least bit intimidated. Rather, she gives each one breathing room, letting them fill in their roles with telling little details, then stepping back to allow them big, juicy Oscar-bait scenes. The men get their chance, too, especially Jenkins, who addresses a jam-packed union meeting after they've heckled Josey off the stage.

Caro does something interesting with these men. Though many of them are portrayed as out-and-out villains, she also lets you see that others are the same ones who would fix Josey's flat tire or help load her Christmas tree on her car. But she's in the wrong place for a woman to be, so she's not a woman; she's an Other. And you can treat Others any way you want.

All three actresses should be on Oscar's short list, but if there's a sure bet, it's Theron. This time, she's not hiding behind her mounds of "Monster" makeup. Instead, we see a very pretty woman who even looks good in plastic goggles. But it's a rough-hewn beauty, not a glamorous one. Josey's the kind of woman men look at in bars and the kind of woman who doesn't mind it. Her good looks drive a wedge between her and some of the other female workers, who've probably never heard a wolf whistle in their lives. Unfortunately, Josey desperately needs three of them to back her case or it'll be thrown out.

Another Oscar nomination may go to Chris Menges for his bold cinematography. He films the mine like an obscene gash in the earth. Belching smoke and ash, it's Mordor moved north — a gaping sore against the pristine white of snowy hills.

"North Country" has been compared with "Norma Rae" and "Silkwood." However, Sally Field and Meryl Streep were standing up for everyone's rights, all the mill workers, all the plutonium plant employees. Josey's plight has more in common with Matthew Shepard and Emmett Till. True, trapping someone in a Port-O-Let and tilting it over isn't the same as being tied to a gate and left to die or beaten beyond recognition and thrown in a river. But the principle is the same. And so is the hatred.