North country

Niki Caro

Film

March

The film North Country is about sexual abuse and how it can affect the women in the workplace. It is based on a true story.

The film North Country follows the story of Josey Aimes(played by Charlize Theron and Amber Heard) who leaves her home with her two kids because her husband is abusive. She has a son named Sammy Aimes (played by Thomas Curtis) and a daughter Karen Aimes(played by Elle Peterson). She works as a hairdresser but the pay isn’t enough to support her two children. So she goes and works in a mine because she needs more money. But her mother who is called Alice Aimes (played by Sissy Spacek) and father who is called Hank Amies (played by Richard Jenkins) don’t agree with this idea. The father is very old fashioned and thinks some things are for men and some things are for women but Josey still goes to the mine. Over the year she is getting harassed by the men who work in the mine because she is a woman. She reaches out to a lawyer called Bill White (played by Woody Harrelson) who is at first not too hot on the idea of going to court. “All roads lead to a lawyer.” He said this to Josey. The other women want to speak out but they are too scared to say anything because they are too scared to lose the case and that this will lead them into deeper danger in the mine. It would probably get worse. One man stands when she is speaking  and says “They don’t belong up there.” He is referring to the women in the mine and that they shouldn’t be working in the mine. The man thinks all the women are trying to make them lose their jobs. All the men agree with him because of what Bobby said.

The three characters that I found interesting are Josey Aimes, Hank Aimes and Bill White. Josey was interesting for me because while the others thought that they would have to live with this, Josey took a stand on sexual harassment. She is brave to fight for all the girls in the mine.
My thoughts on Josey are that she is putting her hand up to represent the women in the mine. She is convinced that Bill White will be her lawyer. It turns out that she has a chance of winning this case. Bill White also said to her “It’s never been done” when she is sitting in her house. He tells Josey that if she reports this to the court she could be the first person to take a stand against sexual harassment. The court thinks Josey’s problem is not as big a scene as she is making it out to be. The court says “Some things are for men, some things are for women. Mining is a man’s job.” My view on this quote is that it is totally false and that the court would say something like this. They are turning a blind eye to one of our biggest problems. I think women should keep trying to eliminate this problem. At one point in the film, Josey and the rest of the miners who are men want to speak but they don’t want to listen to her. A miner named Bobby Sharp(played by Jeremy Renner and Cole Williams) has been telling them that girls are trying to get them kicked out of the mine. When the men try to tell her she can’t speak because she’s a woman, she tells them, “I’m still a member of this union.” This shows that Josey is a woman who is going up against all these men who are so disrespectful to her. She has taken a stand against every man who has sexually abused her. She is one of those characters who will stop at nothing to get what they want. Josey and her father end up working together to win this case. Josey cares a lot about her kids and when the courts ask about who her son’s father is she say’s “My son has nothing to do with it!” This has shown us that Josey wants her kids to be left out of the case. She is a strong woman to keep this between her and the court. Josey has a flashback to her childhood. In one of the flashbacks she is talking to one of her teachers and he starts to sexually abuse her. One sees Josey through the door crying for help but he runs for the door instead of helping. If I saw this I would have run and pushed open the door to find out why she was crying and I would have saved her.”You’re my favourite student!” and “What are you doing?!” These flashbacks show why she feels so strongly about this topic. At home, her mum say’s”We’ll be safe here.” This quote gave us an insight to her mother about her personality. She is caring and wants Josey to feel safe. Her son Sammy Aimes starts off hating his mother but soon learns that she is doing everything for him. He seems not to understand why Josey is working so hard. He finds out that Josey is working in the mine to support him and he feels as though she is working for him. I think Josey has takein it opon herself to support her children the best she can.

I think the Hank Aimes mood changed throughout the movie from unsupportive to supportive. He starts to help his daughter in this case.
When Josey’s father steps up he talks about how, when he was a miner everyone was everyone’s friend but he looks at all the miners and says “Right now I don’t have a friend in this room.” He said this because all the men in the room are trying to tell his daughter to get off the stage and he thinks she should be able to speak. The father is shown to have a change of attitude towards his daughter who is getting abused in the mine. He has shown he still cares about his daughter. He has learned that he can’t control his daughter and no matter what she is, she is still his kid. She is very happy that her dad is there. He learns that Josey was going to work in the mine because she wasn’t making enough money from hairdressing. Josey is doing it for her two children and Bill White helps her along the way.

Bill White is talking to people about Josey. “She  gives up on us as quick as we give up on her!”  This quote has shown how Bill White understands how Josey feels. At one point Josey thinks she loses the case. “It’s over isn’t it?” “Not yet!” Josey thinks she has lost the case but Bill White told her that there is a way to win. I think Bill will do whatever it takes to stop this sexual harassment happening in the mine. At one point the boy who ran away when Josey was crying out for help.”You ran!” He is being asked why he ran but he can’t quite explain himself and that makes him start to find a way out of answering the question. Bill White comes out and tells the court “The one with all the power hurts the ones that have none!” The lesson that I took away from this is people who are in a higher position will take advantage of people who are not. At the end of the film, Josey is so close to winning the case and what she needs is for  more people to stand with her. “I stand with Josey!” Other women are coming forward and saying they have been sexual abused and then more and more people stand with Josey.

The message I took away from the film is that we shouldn’t turn a blind eye to sexual harassment and look the other way. This is a big problem in the world and it happens a lot. I hope we give more attention to this problem. We all know that it takes a lot to stop these things from happening, all women want is a solution to the problem. This film made me think about how big this problem is and how big it has got because no one does anything. We think that nobody is to blame for sexual abuse that goes on in the workplace. The problem is that they keep doing it because there are no consequences to their actions. The men who keep doing this need to be punished for what they have done to these women’s lives. They have taken the women and destroyed their confidence.

The challenges that all the women had to face was sexual harassment and how  mean the men were to them. They didn’t stop so Josey is taking the mine to court. Josey also faces a challenge of trying to win the case. Most women in the real world face all these challenges. The one that most interested me was Harvey Weinstein’s sex crimes. American film producer Harvey Weinstein was finally arrested on charges of rape and sexual assault against many women over 30 years. He used his power to take advantage of women. One woman said “Skilled predators look for the weakest one in the pack. The one without protection.” People protected a predator instead of stopping him from abusing others. It is just like bullying in school. Hard to challenge someone very powerful. He would look for women who would have people to protect them. Weinstein made it seem as if this was the only way to get into Hollywood. I realised this watching this film if one is to change the world. It takes one stand with others to come forward. The challenges that these women had to face was awful. “The game is about power.” Rich and glamorous life in Hollywood which everybody dreams of is such a contrast to the life of a poor miner. Both are men’s worlds. Men have great power and they use it to control women. The truth is the reason men keep doing this is because they have all this power so they can make women do what they want them to do. “He ruined lives he crushed dreams.” Weinstein was a sick man, he was also sick with power. “We knew, everybody knew.” This shows that everybody knew Weinstein was doing these sick things. Harvey just wanted his movie to be the best as well as win all the awards. He won 81 Oscars but what he did to these women is unforgivable. He took advantage of them, he lied to them, he made them feel worthless. The other day was International Women’s day. We should talk about how to make a society which will be good and happy for men and women.

I would recommend this film to men and women. The men will see what sexual harassment does to a woman and the effect it can have. Many men don’t know the short term, long term effect of sexual harassment. Women will find a way to relate to this because they know this happens to them. My thoughts on this movie are that it made me more aware of how bad sexual harassment is. I knew it was bad but this movie showed me it was worse than I thought. I feel so happy that I have been shown what effect this can have on women. I think we need to find a way to stop this from happening.

I think more films should be made making people aware of this ever-growing problem. I think I would like to do something to stop these skilled predators from doing what they do.