Composite Score: 85.56

Starring: Julia Roberts, Albert Finney, Valente Rodriguez, Conchata Ferrell, Scotty Leavenworth, Aaron Eckhart, Marg Helgenberger, Randy Lowell, Joe Chrest, Meredith Zinner, and Cherry Jones

Director: Steven Soderbergh

Writer: Susannah Grant

Genres: Biography, Drama, Legal

MPAA Rating: R for language

Box Office: $256.27 million worldwide

Why should you Watch This Film?

                Erin Brockovich is the 2000 film based on the life of its titular character who helped orchestrate the biggest payout in a direct-action lawsuit in U.S. history when she began investigating connections of illnesses and groundwater contamination for her job as a legal assistant. The film stars Julia Roberts in the titular role, joined most prominently by Albert Finney as her boss and lawyer Ed Masry and Aaron Eckhart as her love interest George. Roberts won the Academy Award for Best Lead Actress for her performance and Finney received a Supporting Actor nomination for his alongside nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay. Most prominently, the film serves as a vehicle to celebrate Julia Roberts’s talent as an actress and to appreciate the marketability of such true-to-life stories when framed properly.

Why shouldn’t you Watch This Film?

                While it succeeds at making a legal drama entertaining (and surprisingly light, given the subject matter), Erin Brockovich lacks much depth beyond its leading lady and her lawyer boss. The slew of plaintiffs in their case have plenty of heavy and emotional issues that have wracked them as a result of the contaminated groundwater in their neighborhood, but there’s not much that differentiates one family from another beyond the symptoms of the individuals (aside from Cherry Jones’s Pamela Duncan who refuses to help at first for fear of just losing the case). I feel affronted and upset by the negligence of Pacific Gas and Electric, but I never quite empathize with Erin’s connection to the people of Hinkley because I don’t see them with the same depth that the real Erin did. Obviously, it’s not possible to give the audience the amount of time we’d need to reach that level of connection with each of the more than 600 plaintiffs, but even just giving the two or three that we do meet more depth than “they/their kids are sick, isn’t that sad?” would have done the trick and undoubtedly helped this film resonate even more with audiences than it already does.

So wait, why should you Watch This Film?

                While the supporting cast leaves a bit to be desired, the leading cast carry the film to its place of greatness. Eckhart plays the most Steve Zahn coded version of himself as biker George whose support of Erin as love interest and babysitter makes her accomplishments possible. It’s not necessarily Eckhart’s most demanding role, but it adds enough humanity to Erin’s home life to really allow Roberts to shine as the heroine. Albert Finney’s supporting performance is by far the more memorable, playing the matter-of-fact lawyer Masry with just the right amount of charm to make his businesslike demeanor still lovable. His fatherly nature aids him in this performance, which leans heavily into Masry’s role as confidant and enabler to Brockovich’s true success as the case’s leading researcher. Does it stand up to the performances of that year’s Oscar winner Benicio Del Toro in Traffic or of fellow nominee Joaquin Phoenix for Gladiator? Maybe not, but it still stands out as an archetypal performance in Finney’s storied career. Of course, Julia Roberts is the film’s headliner and with good reason. From the jump, you get her hard-hitting performance as Brockovich. She plays the struggling single mother with so much charisma and spunk that her rise seems more inevitable than in doubt, and that strong performance carries consistently throughout the film, bringing humor, drama, and emotion to each scene as it demands, marking one of the single best female performances of the last fifty years.

                As a vehicle for Julia Roberts’s leading performance, Erin Brockovich shines, shaping every bit of itself toward cementing its leading lady’s place in history (both the real Brockovich and Roberts for her performance), more than earning itself a place among the Greatest Films of All Time in the process. Its lack of consistency in the development of its supporting cast holds the film back somewhat, but it’s impossible to watch the film without being swept away by the whirlwind that is Julia Roberts in this leading role. You can currently stream this film for free with Fubo TV if you have it, and if not, you can rent it on most streaming platforms.