North Country (2005) on Netflix
Josey Aimes flees an abusive husband and brings her children home to northern Minnesota. The iron mine pays better than the hair salon, and the men make clear the work is theirs.
- Netflix3.7/5
- IMDb7.3/1047,996 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes70%
Trailer
Plot summary
In 1989 Josey Aimes leaves her abusive husband and takes her children, Sammy and Karen, back to the Mesabi Iron Range in northern Minnesota, where her parents, Alice and Hank, take her in. Hank is ashamed of a daughter who had Sammy as a teenager, and he believes women do not belong in the mine where he works. Josey reconnects with Glory Dodge, who mines there and tells her the wages are six times what she earns at the salon. Josey takes the job, moving with her children into Glory's house, and befriends other women on the crew. Most of the male miners treat the women as intruders, and the harassment is constant. Josey's supervisor, Arlen Pavich, refuses to take her complaints seriously.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about North Country (2005)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The film's Josey is based on Lois Jenson, who actually started at the Eveleth Taconite mine in 1975 and filed suit in 1984, four years before the film's start date, and whose real case took fourteen years to settle rather than the shorter span shown on screen.
- Lois Jenson turned down an offer to consult on the film and refused to sell the rights to her own story, so the filmmakers built a fictionalized account with invented characters instead of a direct retelling.
SPOILER
Frances McDormand's character Glory Dodge was based on Pat Kosmach, one of the real plaintiffs in the class action suit, who died partway through the real case in November 1994, four years before it was settled.SPOILER
When Eveleth Mines finally settled the real-life sexual harassment case in December 1998, it paid a total of $3.5 million split between fifteen women.
