Erin Brockovich

Drama

Julia Roberts	Erin Brockovich
David Brisbin	Dr. Jaffe
Albert Finney	Ed Masry
Dawn Didawick	Rosalind
Valente Rodriguez	Donald
Conchata Ferrell	Brenda
George Rocky Sullivan	Los Angeles Judge
Pat Skipper	Defending Lawyer
Jack Gill	Defendant
Irene Olga López	Mrs. Morales
Aaron Eckhart	George
Marg Helgenberger	Donna Jensen
Cherry Jones	Pamela Duncan
Veanne Cox	Theresa Dallavale
Tracey Walter	Charles Embry
Peter Coyote	Kurt Potter
Scotty Leavenworth	Matthew

Director	Steven Soderbergh
Producer	Danny DeVito; Michael Shamberg
Writer	Susannah Grant

A lone woman, armed only with indomitable sass and her native wit, goes up against the corporate big boys and beats the bejesus out of them. As a story line it's hardly new, but Steven Soderbergh's film keeps it exhilaratingly fresh and lively--thanks not least to his lead actress. Seizing the role of the smart, mouthy, aggressively working-class Erin Brockovich with both hands, Julia Roberts gives it everything she's got and then some. She's well matched by Albert Finney as her grouchy but good-hearted boss and Aaron Eckhart as a sympathetic biker. The story's based--by all accounts fairly closely--on actual events, when the real Erin (who appears briefly in the film as a kindly waitress) brought a massive lawsuit against utilities giant Pacific Gas and Electric for spreading toxic pollution. Rather than confine the action to courtroom shenanigans, Soderbergh takes us out under Southern California's pitiless skies and along the dirt-poor roads where most of PG&E's blue-collar victims live, letting us feel the ground-down exhaustion of their lives. But though it's rooted in reality, the film's anything but solemn. The script's sharp and funny, full of unexpected twists; and Roberts, flaunting herself outrageously in an eye-popping array of push-up bras and micro-miniskirts, has never been better. --Philip Kemp