CHARLIZE THERON

CINERAMA

THERON PROVIDES THAT DELICATE TOUCH

By PETER THOMAS BUSCH

The mother of two children flees the family home in a working class town. This story of flight for freedom is common throughout the world but the on-screen dramatization is a remarkable portrayal in the midst of a remarkable acting career.

With her children in hand, Josey Aimes arrived at her parent’s house with a black swollen eye from her husband’s rage and the emotional scars of domestic violence that lasted for years.

Not much else to do for women in an American mining town other than housekeep and win the leading legal precedent for sexual harassment in the workplace.

Charlize Theron shows range as an actor in the performance, cast in the lead role by director Niki Caro in the film, North Country (2005).

Caro creates the legal court challenge narrative simultaneously with the miner’s daughter narrative, and ever so subtly intertwines the two narratives for a dramatic conclusion.

The clever narrative features well with varied stylized camera shots from scene to scene around a supporting cast of talented actors.

Theron is joined by Sissy Spacek, Jeremy Renner, Frances McDormand, Sean Bean, Woody Harrelson and Richard Jenkins in supporting roles.

Supporting actor Michelle Monaghan went from a supporting role as a miner in North Country to a major supporting role as a hospital doctor romantically linked with government operative Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible III (2006). Monaghan would go on to have minor recurring roles in the Mission Impossible franchise.

Caro uses the supporting actors well to create a deep discussion in an interesting script about the many barriers women face entering a male dominated workforce.

Theron though provides a remarkable portrayal of the shifting reality women suffer through when confronted by gender stereotypes, the power imbalance between men and women and systemic misogyny.

Theron literally and figuratively spins out of control at the beginning of the film when her character definitively decides to separate from her abuser. This chosen path toward freedom is just the beginning of Josey’s troubles.

The mine her father works at hires women, but not because the owners of the mining company want to. The court has told them to include women in hiring at the mine.

The women that do obtain jobs suffer as a result of the mining company not wanting them there as zealously as the male workers and the union do not want the women working beside the men either. Josey eventually provides the imputes for a class action legal challenge against the company for sexual harassment in the workplace.

Theron’s performance is bested only by her performance just two years before in Monster (2003).

Patty Jenkins directs Theron in the performance of a lifetime as a street prostitute gone homicidal.

Theron goes through a transformation to play the biopic character Aileen Wuornos. Costume and makeup dress the actor down to make her look like she has been living out of a public storage locker.

Jenkins keeps to a linear narrative, using natural lighting techniques to depict life on the street in almost a documentary format.

In this way, Jenkins filters realism into the dramatizations.

Theron portrays Aileen with emotional and psychological tics that gradually accelerate to the point that she kills one of her customers with little or no remorse, and a hell of a lot of rage.

Christina Ricci costars as Aileen’s lover. The relationship keeps the disturbing plot line somewhat grounded until the two lives of Aileen collide.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded Theron the Oscar for best actor in a leading performance.

Theron also plays the lead role in the highly stylized film of George Miller. Miller cast Theron in the lead as Imperator Furiosa with Tom Hardy reimagining the Mad Max character in the Mad Max franchise film, Fury Road (2015).

The film won six Oscars.

Fury Road was well received, with Theron playing an apocalyptic hero that seems to have been influenced by all the roles she played before.

Miller layers in gender issues on top of the underlining theme of Armageddon and impending environmental disaster.

Theron naturally transitions from Miller’s water truck driver to the American spy in East Germany during the Cold War as the Berlin Wall falls, in Atomic Blonde (2017).

The highley stylized film by director David Leitch uses Theron as an action hero spy genre character assigned to recover the list of secret agents operating out of Berlin. James McAvoy, John Goodman and Eddie Marsen provide supporting characters as Theron fights her way out of a double blind spy thriller.

The ‘protecting the list of secret agents’ cliché is perhaps the only weak part of a movie that does just about everything else to keep the audience entertained.

Theron then goes back to her biopic characters with one of the most culturally important roles of recent years, as Fox News on air personality Megyn Kelly in Bombshell (2019).

Nicole Kidman plays biopic character Gretchen Carlson and Margot Robbie plays composite character Kayla Pospisil.

Theron transforms emotionally and physically for the role and ultimately becomes the high achiever triple ‘A’ personality news anchor.

Director Jay Roach uses Theron’s character to show both sides of the workplace sexual harassment argument.

Theron portrays Kelly as aggressive in pursuing a high profile career in the news and entertainment business, but she is also someone who is not immune to the vulgarity of the poisoned work environment.

Theron’s career is highlighted with biopic performances that advanced the cause of gender equality when she could have languished in the comedy and romance genres and not ripple the tides of change.

Theron not only can laugh and cry, but she can kick, spit and kill as well.

Theron’s talent for being able to act a range of emotions within one film is parallel to her ability to play a range of characters in different movie genres with Hollywood’s marque actors. Theron has co-starred with such Hollywood leading actors as Tom Hanks, Al Pacino, Keanu Reeves, Bill Paxton, Johnny Depp, Tobey Maguire, Michael Cain, Robert De Niro, Will Smith, Mark Wahlberg, and Michael Fassbender.

A Theron film is a unique experience, different from previous roles she has played and different yet again from films other actors lead in.

Aileen is street tough with a scarred psychology wanting better for herself, but at the same time she is resigned to a life in the sex trade, while Josey is a working class small town single mother fighting gender barriers to provide for her children. Megyn is an A-lister earning her spot at the front desk of a national newscast with enough sense and decorum to be insulted by sexual harassment in the workplace.

Theron performs all three biopic characters with genuine originality. All the more remarkable though is that one of the greatest actors in Hollywood joins the marque in just about every other movie genre with just as much authentic brilliance.