In the wintry landscape of northern Minnesota, a mining community has been forced to hire women. It’s the mid 1980’s and the menfolk unhappily outnumber females by thirty-to-one. Threatened, they vent their frustration on those ‘stealing their jobs’ – humiliation and, in some cases, rape, is all in a days work. When one woman, Josie Aimes (Theron), decides to fight back, her actions have unexpected and far-reaching consequences. North Country is many things: a classic social drama, a story about a crumbling family, a rousing account of America's first successful class-action sexual-harassment lawsuit.

Director Niki Caro (Whale Rider) chooses the old-fashioned route to recount events that changed the way a nation works. Long, elegant shots establish the formidable country in which Josie lives and wants to work. They build a brooding sense of alienation as Michael Seitzman’s (sometimes predictable) script develops. Caro flashes around the story’s hotspots – from questionable courtroom drama to teenage misfortune and the escalating ‘trouble at mill’. She relies on some overcooked and simplistic moments, but the approach is largely effective. Old-school feminism resounds as Theron charismatically embraces a working-class heroine doing what she has to do, without benefit of feminist theory.

She is achingly real yet Caro is shrewd enough to flesh out key support and give her film a stronger resonance than perhaps it deserves. Notable is Richard Jenkins Oscar contender as Josie's father, a man barely able to conceal his anger toward his wayward daughter. It gives North Country urgency as he comes to understand why he can no longer deny Josie rights he'd automatically grant a son. The results are stirring, upsetting and infuriating – a clear indication that Caro is a filmmaker of significant voice.

// COLIN FRASER