Movie review of Erin Brockovich

Friday, March 17th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

When a Hollywood movie strives to salute the working classes, its mood often seems self-congratulatory. When a popular movie star aims for dramatic validation, the performance is frequently self-conscious.

Neither of these cynical generalizations applies to the poignant, yet hilarious, "Erin Brockovich." Like the real-life heroine it celebrates, the movie triumphantly breaks unspoken rules. It's a victory for Julia Roberts, co-star Albert Finney and director Steven Soderbergh. It's also a victory for the audience.

As Erin, Ms. Roberts must radiate movie-star charisma while registering emotional depth.

After all, in her own world, Erin is a star. She wears hip-hugging, cleavage-exploiting outfits, and if anyone disapproves, she hurls an epithet in their direction. A former Miss Wichita, she retains a semblance of beauty-queen vanity, balanced by a fundamental sense of right and wrong.

During her first decade of stardom, Ms. Roberts repeatedly displayed a sharp delivery of one-liners, and "Erin Brockovich" contains her most pungent repartee yet. The difference here is that she allows us to see the sadness beneath the sarcasm. It's a dynamic performance, one that retains its momentum throughout the movie. If Sally Field's Norma Rae seemed too much a blue-collar saint, Ms. Roberts' Erin would snicker at such a sanctimonious label and continue behaving like the most human of beings.

When the film starts, Erin Brockovich is a twice-divorced mother of three young children. Jobless and (at least temporarily) despondent, she browbeats attorney Ed Masry (Mr. Finney) into hiring her as his office's unofficial file clerk. Ed is a good-hearted, slightly repressed man, having subconsciously grown accustomed to occupying the lower tier of his profession.

Erin's tenacious research provides her and her boss with a career-making cause. They will fight the Pacific Gas and Electric Company, which has used a deadly chemical in the local water supply and has placated the public with lies and half-truths. Meanwhile, residents of the desert town of Hinkley, Calif., have suffered horrifying illnesses and deaths.
In lesser hands, "Erin Brockovich" could have been a simplistic "Rocky Goes to Court" flick. But Mr. Soderbergh's films (sex, lies, and videotape; "The Limey;" "Out of Sight;" the cruelly neglected "King of the Hill") always mix strong visual imagery with sharp human observation. Here he demonstrates a grasp of the caste system that exists, however subtly, in many offices. In the Masry law office, Erin is initially the odd-woman-out, but the other employees grudgingly discover her worth.

The relationship between Ed Masry and Erin is completely credible. Theirs is a merger of hearts and minds on a purely friendship level, and neither the screenplay, Mr. Finney, Ms. Roberts nor Mr. Soderbergh tries to turn it into a romance. Besides, even in their most serene moments, you sense that Ed and Erin will always manage to irritate each other.

Aaron Eckhardt has the most formulaic part, as the neighborhood biker who's in touch with his emotions. But Mr. Eckhardt shades the character gently and persuasively, and his romantic moments with Ms. Roberts make you wish all the best for this sometimes mismatched couple. The movie might have used more of the splendid Cherry Jones, playing a victim of the water scam, but Marg Helgenberger is superb as another resident whose tragic plight is pivotal to Erin's cause.

Any description of "Erin Brockovich" makes it sound heavy, like a movie you'll see dutifully and protest, a bit too much, that you really enjoyed.

The happy surprise is that "Erin Brockovich" truly is a richly entertaining movie that never allows the essential legal battles to distract from its witty, poignant and empathetic human drama. And, yes, Julia Roberts is sensational.