Erin Brokovich

I thought I remembered this movie being heralded as a feminist break-through. If anything it seemed more like a white-trash break-through to me. It was a fine movie. Nothing spectacular. It's nice to know that a greedy corporation didn't get away with poisoning the nearby townspeople, and that a single mother with few marketable skills worked hard enough to provide for her children. Erin's personable connection to the lower-middle class is what brought the town together to form a class-action suit whereas the people wouldn't otherwise trust the uppity lawyers.

My biggest complaint really is that the neighborhood where Erin lived and raised her children was hardly white-trashy. It was supposed to look dirty and poor, but the lawns were large and mowed. Her house was new and clean (with the exception of an occasional on-screen cockroach) despite the fact that she kept complaining about how filthy it was. To show how bare her cupboards were, she had to choose between a family sized can of soup or macaroni & cheese. I think the film-makers must be so out of touch with actual white-trash that they should have had an Erin Brokovich of their own to advise the set design.