Formative Performances: Julia Roberts in “Erin Brockovich”

[The following is a guest post from abovethetitle.]

She will not be known as the greatest actress of my generation but she certainly will be remembered as the greatest female movie star. Some of her recent choices have been half-baked at best but let us not forget that she once held the power to spin something like “Runaway Bride” into box office gold. With “Erin Brockovich,” she did more than show her pearly whites, more than laugh when Richard Gere closed a jewelry box on her fingers, more than toss her mane of hair (that is NOT a horse joke). She played an Everywoman who brings a corporate giant to its knees, using her patented Julia charm to make even Erin’s very very rough edges lovable. I remember “Erin” as the second rated R movie I saw (“Elizabeth” starring Cate Blanchett being the first – I was a unique child…) and the first I saw with my mother. I wasn’t 17 yet so she had to take me to the movies. We saw a back-to-back feature of Natalie Portman in “Where the Heart Is” followed by an advanced screening of “Erin.” What can you really say about the movie? It is in many ways a glorified Lifetime story but it showed the world why Julia is Julia. I was still a little young for “Pretty Woman” so “Erin” remains my most indelible memory of America’s sweetheart in the prime of her career.