This week's movie is Erin Brockovich, the story of a single woman with three kids who gets a job as a legal assistant and eventually is an instrumental force in a PG&E lawsuit. It's a true story, although since life is rarely dramatically appropriate or convenient, there are some things that had to be changed for the movie. This happens with any movie based on a true story, or book, or play for that matter. It's its own media and has some limitations as well as some advantages.

Anyway, Julia Roberts is the star, and she puts in a role that I found to be reminiscent of Pretty Woman, except with more attitude. Erin is someone who has a lot of things going against her and instead of letting that stop her she pushes back harder. It's a good role for Roberts, as I haven't seen her playing a really forceful character before. Probably her best role since Pretty Woman, although maybe I just liked this character more than the others that she has played. Someone you can really root for.

Albert Finney plays Ed Masry, Erin's boss and who has his own small law firm. He represents Erin in a car accident case, which they lose, leaving Erin with a lot of debt. In desperation, she determinely asks him for a job, which he relunctantly agrees to. After that, Erin is given a case to research for Ed, and she goes off to a small town in what looks to be Central California to interview the plaintiff.

As she learns more, Erin finds out that PG&E may be culpable in the large number of health problems in town, because they accidentally contaminated the water table some fifteen years ago. There are a lot of small conflicts as Erin has to overcome prejudices against her because of her looks and demeanor. She has to constantly prove herself as a capable person, which she does admirably.

There is a bit of a love story, less than in many movies. George is a biker/ construction worker who gets along well with Erin's kids. He pursues Erin in an almost languid way. The movie covers almost two years of time, mostly by skipping a year of Erin researching and finding the 600+ plaintiffs that she did find. But the love story is just sort of there in the background, as are the kids.

In fact, the only real conflicts in the movie all involve Erin proving that she isn't a bimbo or some poor white trash with three kids and no education. People doubt her, so she has to show them up. People put roadblocks and try to cut her out of the case, so she runs over the roadblocks and makes herself an indispensable part of the case. It's an aptly-titled movie, as it is not so much about the case as about Erin.

I can heartily recommend this movie, as it is one of the best I've seen this year. No action (unless you count the car accident at the beginning of the movie), practically no romance, all drama, lots of comedic moments. The rest of the audience certainly enjoyed it as much as I did, one of the few movies where people clapped and cheered at times.

This is the eleventh movie I've seen this year, after eleven weeks of the year have gone by. Somehow I'm on a really good pace to break last year's personal record of 30 movies. Of the movies I've seen, there has been one suspense, two action, three science fiction, and five dramas. So I haven't seen any romantic movies (unusual) nor any comedies (although that's not surprising). Nothing looks like a must see for next week's movie, so I guess I'll decide Friday night what I'll watch next Saturday.