'NORTH COUNTRY' Melodramatic account examines true struggle

Richard Jenkins and Charlize Theron, as father and daughter, stand out.
By ROGER MOORE
ORLANDO SENTINEL
The Iron Range of northern Minnesota is a barren tundra, a snowscape gouged by gaping wounds in the land, open pit mines worked by men as hard as their surroundings.
It's conservative, polka-listening, hockey-playing country. And it's a very strange place to set a national precedent for sexual harassment law. But that's just what happened there in the 1980s.
Lois Jensen had a job where she wasn't wanted. The good ol' boys who worked with her had ways of letting her know that. When she had had enough, she went to court and changed the American workplace forever.
"North Country" is a Norma Rae-styled version of that true story, a harrowing and depressing but in the end uplifting account of someone who needed a job so badly she was willing to endure things one can't name in a family newspaper just to work alongside people who wished her dead.
Family hardships
Charlize Theron finally cashes in some of that "Monster"-Oscar capital as Josey Aimes. She's a single mom with a colorful sexual history and an abusive relationship she's fleeing when we meet her. She has just brought her two kids back home to the range where she grew up.
But her hopes of getting on her feet and making a life for them are dashed by the lack of opportunity there. Only her friend Glory (Frances McDormand) seems to be able to make it, and she's a miner. Only the mine, the big local employer, pays enough to finance their version of the American Dream.
Josey's dad, played by veteran character actor Richard Jenkins, is a manager who doesn't want to see her in the mine, "taking jobs" away from men. Her mom (Sissy Spacek) tries to mediate the growing rift between them.
Men of the mine
And Josey needs her dad. The men in the mine are barely worthy of that label, "men." They harass, taunt and assault the few women there.
"Work hard; keep your mouth shut, and take it like a man," the women are told. And they do.
But the guys push Josey too far, further than you can imagine. When Josey tries to fight the company, the harassers and the culture that protects them, she finds out just how few friends she has. Glory is little help. Her female colleagues are scared into silence. Her own family won't stick up for her. She's left with only a struggling lawyer (Woody Harrelson) at her side.
Film dynamics
Niki Caro, the director of "Whale Rider," has made a classic underdog-vs.-the system story, rendered in the harsh blue-grays of a Minnesota winter. The only visual relief from the hellish mine and drab, colorless houses is the brown courtroom. Everything about the film, even the tunes selected for the soundtrack (Dylan's "Girl of the North Country" is one) reinforce that.
There's a lot of melodrama -- Josey's son is furious at her for bringing this down on the family; Glory gets sick, and her crippled husband (Sean Bean) tries to prop her up.
But Theron commits to the part the way she did for "Monster," letting the dirt, blood and fear show. Her Minnesota accent pales next to McDormand's, but McDormand ("Fargo") has had a lot more practice.
Harrelson has his first decent part in ages, but Spacek is merely stoic and symbolic. She's barely in the film.
The big turn is by Jenkins, a bit player with some 60 film and TV movie appearances behind him. His character has the longest journey to take, from intolerance to understanding. And his big moment, at a union meeting, a place where he's respected and she is loathed, is eloquent, simple and moving.