Erin Brockovich

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How you see Erin Brockovich has a lot to do with whether you see it as "the new Julia Roberts" or "the new Steven Soderbergh." For the vast majority, it’s the former, and it’s a continuation of the Julia Roberts renaissance started with My Best Friend’s Wedding and continued through Notting Hill and Runaway Bride. Even a lot of indie-heads I know have been shocked at the news that Soderbergh is behind what looks for all intents and purposes like the latest vehicle for Roberts’ wide-toothed grin.

But if you’ve been following Soderbergh’s recent career — which, if less successful, is certainly a lot more interesting than Roberts’ — with the intensity it surely merits, you see Erin Brockovich through a different lens. Even die-hard Julia fans who love the picture’s gum-snapping sassiness probably won’t notice much awry from your typical triumph-of-the-human-spirit, music-swelling-at-the-climax number. As a scantily clad single mother of three who goes from auto-accident plaintiff to taking on one of the country’s largest utilities, Roberts is Pretty Woman meets Karen Silkwood. (And if that phrase wasn’t used in the pitch meeting, I’ll eat my iMac.) At the preview screening I saw, the audience whooped and hollered at every one of Erin’s tart-tongued ripostes, whether telling off an overweight co-worker with "Bite me, Krispy Kreme," or responding to her boss’s comments about her wardrobe with, "As long as I have one ass instead of two, I’ll wear what I want." One person a few rows back was actually moved to yell out "Scandalous!" like she was auditioning for a seat in Jerry Springer’s studio.

The film draws inspiration from Brockovich’s real-life struggle against Pacific Gas & Electric, who were accused of dumping hexavalent chromium (used to prevent cooling towers from corroding) into the ground water in Hinkley, CA, causing everything from fatal cancers to miscarriages and digestive disorders. With no legal experience but lots of bills to pay, Brockovich finagled her way into the law office of Ed Masry (played here by a comically officious Albert Finney), and stumbled across PG&E’s attempts to buy off and conceal its wrongdoing.

The outlines of the story which follows are familiar to the point of being shopworn, but if you’ve been paying attention to the games Soderbergh’s been playing with narrative over his last several films, you can appreciate the way he’s toyed with structure and form while still giving the audience exactly what they want. In an early scene where Erin testifies in her unsuccessful accident claim, Soderbergh jumps the camera around her witness-box-bound figure, moving her head around the screen so at times she’s only half a second away from testifying to her own image. The effect is accomplished subtly, but the way she’s isolated in that chair sets up the feeling of helplessness before the law, which becomes her primary obstacle in the film. Using most of the crew from the far more experimental The Limey, Soderbergh keeps Erin Brockovich away from court-film clichés and fist-pumping Norma Rae moments.

To some extent, this is like putting a new coat of paint on an old rattletrap. The script by Susannah Grant (Ever After, TV’s Party of Five) — with an uncredited but widely acknowledged polish by Richard LaGravanese — has little to recommend it beside its heroine’s trash-mouthed pluck; even if it avoids courtroom scenes and ominous corporate bogeymen, it’s too predicated on keeping the audience hooting in their seats to develop the characters past their pleasing surfaces. Despite the fine performances Soderbergh draws from Finney, Aaron Eckhart, Peter Coyote and especially Marg Helgenberger and Cherry Jones, the film never leaves you a second’s doubt about how things will turn out, which means on some level, instead of enjoying the film, you’re just waiting for the ending.

Make no mistake, Erin Brockovich is a great new Julia Roberts movie. When Roberts sticks within her boundaries — and after Mary Reilly and Michael Collins, let’s hope she does — she’s impossible not to like, all coltish sexuality and girl-next-door charm. (Those body-hugging outfits won’t hurt the film at the box-office either; Roberts’ cleavage is as important to Erin Brockovich as her legs were to Pretty Woman.) Erin Brockovich plays to her strengths, even if she’s hardly convincing as a mother of three. The problem is, it’s Steven Soderbergh’s movie, too, and it’s hard not to be a little disappointed. After all, the man showed he can mix entertainment and intelligence with Out of Sight. But that film lost money domestically, and Erin Brockovich seems like a cinch to be Soderbergh’s first moneymaker in a good long while. It’s not that the film is devoid of personality; it’s just that the personality is more the star’s than the director’s.

See Sam’s interview with Steven Soderbergh.