There’s something satisfyingly old-fashioned (in the best sense of the word) about North Country. With its cast of powerhouse female stars like Charlize Theron, Frances McDormand and Sissy Spacek, it harks back to the groundbreaking women’s movies of Hollywood’s golden age, when strong-jawed gals like Joan Crawford, Barbara Stanwyck and Bette Davis were making melodramas that gently pointed out society’s iniquities, particularly towards women. North Country is one of several prestige, studio-financed pictures this year putting social issues at the heart of their stories.

“This isn’t a story in which all the men are evil and all the women are good, because I know that’s not the case,” explains director Niki Caro, whose last film, Whale Rider, was an internationally praised and popular hit. “That would be a huge disservice to the complexities of human relationships. There are instances here in which both men and women behave appallingly and others in which they show great compassion. This is one of the reasons why I found the project so interesting and honest.”

The issue at the centre of North Country is sexual harassment and equality in the workplace, a subject some sections of the media would tell you is unfashionably ‘PC’ but remains topical today. The film is set in the late eighties, and Theron stars as Josey Aimes, an attractive but unlucky single mother with a past, who returns to her hometown in Northern Minnesota and gets a well-paid job at the local iron mine. The men at the mine don’t want the handful of women the government has forced the company to employ working there, supposedly taking jobs from them and invading their rough and ready, male-dominated environment. Even Josey’s church-going father (Six Feet Under’s Richard Jenkins), who has worked there for years, doesn’t want her at the mine.

Targeted by several odious ringleaders whose action is tacitly condoned by those (like Josey’s dad) who remain silent, Josey and the female miners are subjected to a constant stream of sexual harassment, ranging from off-colour remarks to unwelcome fondling to vicious and dangerous pranks. Josey is outraged by the degrading treatment and tries to fight it; but her best friend, union rep Glory (Frances McDormand) and the other women workers would prefer to let things lie.