A gaseous, trite star-vehicle wherein Julia Roberts gets to play working class via trashy clothing and a foul mouth. In essence, she reprises her wardrobe from Pretty Woman. But she's a good gal underneath that rough exterior, a moll bruised by bad men, a mother who neglects her children only to tend to the people who really need her - Californians who have been poisoned by Pacific Gas & Electric and their evil design to put chromium into their groundwater.
Like Don Quixote dressed for a red light district, Julia teaches us that she is smarter than lawyers, that heart (not head, unless she's giving it) is what matters, that she can get anywhere flashing her titties, and, that everybody who ever crosses Erin Brockovich is a tight, humorless, prig who has underestimated her pluckiness, to their undying embarrassment.
Naturally, the PG&E people are faceless, stupid drones, who Erin confronts and morally upbraids in a settlement meeting; her co-counsel is the tightest, most frigid of shrews, who Erin bests with her superior knowledge of the case file (and the inelegantly communicated fact that Erin is not a frigid misery of a woman); her boss is an addled schmo who is a much better man with the likes of Erin on his ticket; her coworkers are mean, fat cows who envy Erin for her lean legs and yes, her prominent titties; and everyone else is just in the sway of her estimable bosom, brawn and benificence.
And the victims, yea God, the victims. Stephen Soderbergh lards this experience with 5 or 6 sit-downs during which Erin learns yet again how many children have been lost; how many tumors have cropped up; how many chemotherapies have been delivered, so she can empathize and show us all why she does what she does.
