North Country [WS] [DVD] [2005]

A fictionalized account of one of America's most groundbreaking sexual harassment lawsuits comes to the screen in this hard-hitting drama. In the late '80s, Josey Aimes (Charlize Theron) fled her abusive husband, and needed to find a way to support her two children. Aimes returned to her hometown in Minnesota and followed the lead of her old friend Glory (Frances McDormand), who had bucked tradition and found a job in the iron mines that had long provided employment for much of the community. Aimes found honest labor and a living wage working the mines, but she also discovered she was working with men who were uncomfortable working with women (whose right to work in the mines had been mandated by law almost 15 years prior), and didn't care to show them much respect. However, as Aimes found herself the growing target of sexist jokes and abhorrent behavior, she found that many of her female co-workers were reluctant to stand beside her, afraid of losing a good-paying job at a time when they were increasingly hard to find. But as a personal crisis became a public war of words, Aimes became the center of a nationwide controversy when she attempted to file a class action sexual harassment suit against the mine owners, which put her and her family in a position of scrutiny beyond her worst expectations. North Country also stars Sean Bean, Sissy Spacek, and Woody Harrelson.~Mark Deming