North Country

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

After "Monster," here is another extraordinary role from an actress [Theron] who has the beauty of a fashion model but has found resources within herself for these powerful roles about unglamorous women in the world of men.

Dallas Observer Bill Gallo

Happily, North Country is not all social-realist grit or straight sermonizing. Not only is Theron achingly real, the fine supporting performances here lend even more dramatic reach and human scale.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

A classic social drama in the proud tradition of "Norma Rae," "Silkwood" and "Erin Brockovich."

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

What gives North Country urgency is that it's about how a man comes to understand that it's bad for him and for his community to deny his daughter privileges and prerogatives he'd grant his son.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

It infuriated me. It broke my heart. It convinced me that Caro, who's from New Zealand, is a strong, clear-voiced filmmaker

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

An engrossing, well-crafted story of a grave injustice avenged, hitting all the right notes of sympathy, outrage and, finally, relief.

Slate David Edelstein

Powerful and then some.

Variety David Rooney

An emotionally potent story told with great dignity.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Charlize Theron, in nonglam mode, dominates this powerful drama about sexual harassment at a Minnesota iron ore mine in the early 90s.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Tasha Robinson

The story of America's first successful class-action sexual-harassment lawsuit may sound dull, but Caro ratchets up the intensity until every flung epithet and threat stings. The approach is sometimes shrill, but it's effective.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

A welcome and appropriate treat is the flurry of Bob Dylan tunes that can be heard playing in the background of this northern Minnesota story.

USA Today Mike Clark

The milieu here is unforgiving, which makes fighting for basic rights important. You get a sense of why Bob Dylan -- who performs on this soundtrack -- wanted to bolt this frigid part of the map.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

Overcooked and simplistic in spots.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Stirring and emotionally forceful.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Might have been richer, tougher, more honestly liberal if it had revealed a few more shades of gray among the men.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Despite its serious subject matter, North Country is a crowd-pleaser at heart.

Premiere Stephen Saito

There is something almost reverential about the way director Niki Caro shoots the winding roads leading into Minnesota's North Country mining community, just before dismantling all of it piece by piece.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

North Country may be a simplistic account of a hard-won battle, but it will have audiences cheering.

San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein

Richard Jenkins gives the standout supporting performance, worthy of Oscar consideration, as Josey's father, a miner unable to conceal his anger at his daughter for having a child out of wedlock and, now, creating dissension at his workplace.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

The problem with Seitzman's script is how predictable almost all of it feels.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

The movie’s old-school feminism is true to its subject, and Theron proves charismatic enough to stand alone as an emblematic working-class heroine doing what she has to do without benefit of feminist theory. I’m even willing to forgive this rousing drama its coy, flirty ending, if only because its heroine has the grace not to drive her pickup truck off a cliff.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

The issue of sexual politics so dominates the story that it's a relief when an emotional showdown involves family rather than workplace issues. Not so surprisingly, these are the movie's best scenes.

The New Yorker Anthony Lane

You cannot help being stirred by the reach and depth, the constant rebuffs to sloppiness, of a strong ensemble.

Newsweek David Ansen

Frances McDormand, as the lone female union rep, and Richard Jenkins, as Josie’s angry miner dad, cut through the predictability.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

But the contrast between setting and story isn't all that bars North Country from fulfillment. The major trouble is Theron. She plays Josey as well as is needed, but she is simply too beautiful.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

Harrelson does his considerable best to redeem the hackneyed role of the dreamboat do-gooder. No matter how conventional his roles may be, he always gives them a feral quality, an eccentricity, that lifts them out of the ordinary.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

At best, North Country just inspires you to read the book.

Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan

Caro stumbles in a couple ways. By flashing forward throughout the film to scenes of the climactic courtroom showdown, she blunts the story's dramatic impact.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

North Country resorts to theatrics a judge would squelch after one outburst, as director Niki Caro and writer Michael Seitzman aim for a "Spartacus" feel.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Stephen Cole

For all North Country's blockbuster elements, the film remains a curiously uninvolving affair.

Chicago Tribune Jessica Reaves

A potentially great movie--with talent and plot points to spare--that settles for being just okay.

Village Voice Jessica Winter

Having established Josey as the focus of the entire iron range's enmity, the filmmakers panic, and North Country spectacularly self-destructs in a climactic courtroom free-for-all.

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

That the film works as well as it does, delivering a tough first hour only to disintegrate like a wet newspaper, testifies to the skill of the filmmakers as well as to the constraints brought on them by an industry that insists on slapping a pretty bow on even the foulest truth.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

To see this overly schematic movie, is to be made to feel -- inaccurately as it turns out -- that the whole thing is a hopelessly exaggerated fabrication. The taint of the melodramatic techniques used in key segments infects the entire movie and makes us question the truth of a significant historical reality.

Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar

An above average film, and features fine performances (Theron and McDormand are probably stone locks for more Oscar nominations), but be wary of the advertising pointing out the film's similarities to movies like "Erin Brockovich."

TV Guide Ken Fox

What should have been an important addition to popular films about women's rights winds up being the most insulting courtroom drama since "Ally McBeal" was put out of its misery.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Any similarities between Josey and Lois Jenson, the real woman who made Eveleth Mines pay for their sins in a landmark 1988 class-action suit, are purely coincidental. Instead, we get a TV-movie fantasy of female empowerment glazed with soap-opera theatrics.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

A long, slow slog through what could have been, and should have been, a more absorbing story.

Empire Angie Errigo

It starts off well enough but slowly sinks under the leaden weight of its worthiness.