NORTH COUNTRY
Year: 2005
USA & UK: Warner Bros Pictures
Cast: Charlize Theron, Elle Petersen, Thomas Curtis, Frances McDormand, Sean Bean, Woody Harrelson, Jeremy Renner, Richard Jenkins, Sissy Spacek, James Cada, Rusty Schwimmer, Linda Emond, Michelle Monaghan, Brad William Henke, Jillian Armenante, Amber Heard, John Aylward, Xander Berkeley, Corey Stoll, Cole Williams, Bryan Fagerstrom, Chris Mulkey, Aaron Shiver, Clif Stokes, Jd Garfield, Boots Southerland, John Hardman, Forrest Norgaard, Sage Coy, Marcus Chait, Dennis E Garber, Alex Layton, Jacqueline Wright, Catherine Campion, Tom Bower, David Lislegard, Kurt Peterson, Pete Pellinen, Bruce Bohne, Todd Anderson, Kit Gwin, Monsignor Patrick Mcdowell, Raye Birk, Sally Wingert, Katherine Ferrand, Curtis Plagge, Marc Miles, J C Cutler, Gus Lynch, Mark Sivertsen, Rand Kennedy
Director: Niki Caro
Country: USA
UK: 126 mins
USA Rated: R for sequences involving sexual harassment including violence and dialogue, and for language
UK Certificate: 15 contains strong sex references, language and moderate sexual violence
USA Release Date: 21 October 2005
UK Release Date: 3 February 2006
Synopsis
When Josey Aimes (Academy Award winner Charlize Theron) returns to her hometown in Northern Minnesota after a failed marriage, she needs a good job. A single mother with two children to support, she turns to the predominant source of employment in the region - the iron mines.
The mines provide a livelihood that has sustained a community for generations. The work is hard but the pay is good and friendships that form on the job extend into everyday life, bonding families and neighborhoods with a common thread.
It's an industry long dominated by men, in a place unaccustomed to change.
Encouraged by her old friend Glory (Academy Award winner Frances McDormand), one of the few female miners in town, Josey joins the ranks of those laboring to blast ore from rock in the gaping quarries. She is prepared for the back-breaking and often dangerous work, but coping with the harassment she and the other female miners encounter from their male co-workers proves far more challenging.
Times are tough. The last thing the miners want is women competing for scarce jobs - women who, in their estimation, have no business driving trucks and hauling rock anyway. If these newcomers want to work the mines they'll have to do it on the terms set by the veteran workforce and it won't be easy. Take it or leave it.
When Josey speaks out against the treatment she and her fellow workers face she is met with resistance - not only from those in power but from a community that doesn't want to hear the truth, her disapproving parents and many of her own colleagues who fear she is only making things worse. In time, even her friendship with Glory will be tested, her already difficult connection with her father, a lifelong miner, will be pushed to its limit and elements of her personal life exposed to scrutiny. The fallout from Josey's battle to make a better future for herself and her children will affect every aspect of her life, including her relationship with her young daughter and her sensitive teenage son, who must first cope with the embarrassment of his mother's sudden notoriety and then face harsh details of her past she was hoping he would never have to know.
Through these struggles Josey will find the courage to stand up for what she believes in - even if that means standing alone.
Inspired by a true story, NORTH COUNTRY follows Josey's journey on a road that will take her farther than she ever imagined, ultimately inspiring countless others, and leading to the nation's first-ever class action lawsuit for sexual harassment.
