What happened?! I saw Whale Rider, loved it, and expected a really sensitive and intelligent next film from Niki Caro. But the ideas in this film felt so dated. Niki Caro's themes are obviously about young girls or women thwarted by (often violent) male power. To prove it, the film simplifies men into the standard soapy "Insensitive Brute" or "Panderer". With no complex male antagonists to play against, the women came across as reduced and simplified, mostly appearing as victims or incapable of thinking for themselves (for example, why didn't they put a lock on their change-room door to keep the men out, or photograph the evidence of the bullying?). At times the film was shot like a thriller but this over-promised the threat, leaving the story sagging where it should have been peaking. As for the internal logic, why, in the court scene, is there so much ranting about how an individual's sexual history should be inadmissible, yet it is Josie Aimes's sexual history that ultimately swings public opinion in her direction? There are other structural issues but, ultimately, it read like a film that cast its net too wide into very muddied waters.
Review of North Country
