Erin Brockovich Reviews

This has little of the flair we've come to expect from Steven Soderbergh, the Oscar-winning director of Traffic, and it does resemble a standard “issue of the week” TV movie. Yet this drama's ace in the hole is Soderbergh's fellow Oscar winner (for best actress) Julia Roberts, who earns every cent of her $20-million salary in a sensationally showy role as the spirited heroine. A twice-divorced mother of three, Brockovich lands a job in the office of a small-time lawyer (Albert Finney), and there she stumbles across some misplaced medical records while filing real estate documents. Intrigued, she investigates, eventually uncovering evidence that a power company has wrecked the health of a local community with contaminated water. Based on a true story, Soderbergh's emotionally-rich drama is compulsive viewing, thanks not only to Roberts's throat-grabbing performance, but also to Finney's loveable turn as the minor-league attorney who's well out of his depth and a perfectly pitched script by Susannah Grant. While the film is too long, it remains compelling throughout.

Unexpectedly lively and amusing movie of a heartening true story, one that gives Julia Roberts her best and most convincing role so far, as a feisty but vulnerable mother who refuses to be intimidated by anyone.

"...Relaxed and supremely engaging....Roberts' delightful performance, shaded with a depth and complexity unprecedented in her career, is the centrepiece of ERIN BROCKOVICH..."

This has little of the flair we've come to expect from Steven Soderbergh, the Oscar-winning director of Traffic, and it does resemble a standard “issue of the week” TV movie. Yet this drama's ace in the hole is Soderbergh's fellow Oscar winner (for best actress) Julia Roberts, who earns every cent of her $20-million salary in a sensationally showy role as the spirited heroine. A twice-divorced mother of three, Brockovich lands a job in the office of a small-time lawyer (Albert Finney), and there she stumbles across some misplaced medical records while filing real estate documents. Intrigued, she investigates, eventually uncovering evidence that a power company has wrecked the health of a local community with contaminated water. Based on a true story, Soderbergh's emotionally-rich drama is compulsive viewing, thanks not only to Roberts's throat-grabbing performance, but also to Finney's loveable turn as the minor-league attorney who's well out of his depth and a perfectly pitched script by Susannah Grant. While the film is too long, it remains compelling throughout.

Unexpectedly lively and amusing movie of a heartening true story, one that gives Julia Roberts her best and most convincing role so far, as a feisty but vulnerable mother who refuses to be intimidated by anyone.

"...Relaxed and supremely engaging....Roberts' delightful performance, shaded with a depth and complexity unprecedented in her career, is the centrepiece of ERIN BROCKOVICH..."

"...ERIN BROCKOVICH will make you laugh. It will make you cry. It will make you stand up and cheer. ERIN BROCKOVICH is the feel-good movie of the year..."

"An exhilarating tale....Well done....ERIN BROCKOVICH is everything that 'inspirational' true-life stories should be and rarely are..."

Being the true story of a struggling single mother's exposé of a water poisoning case, implicating the giant utility... read more on Time Out