Classic Movie Review: 'Erin Brockovich' and the Importance of the Very First Scene

Erin Brockovich

Directed by Steven Soderbergh

Written by Susannah Grant

Starring Julia Roberts, Albert Finney, Aaron Eckhardt

Release Date March 17th, 2000

Published Wednesday January 29th, 2025

An attractive and quite nervous woman sits in a rather forgettably well appointed office. She’s pitching herself for a job that she is not fully qualified for. It’s a job that she could probably be trained to do quite well, but, on paper, she doesn’t have the credentials. So, she plays up her strengths. She’s a people person, she’s great at interacting with the public. And, she’s a mom. She’s cared for her children all of their lives, something she sees as qualifying her for the job of being a nurse or nurses aid. But of course, she’s not getting this job. Being a nurse of any kind requires schooling and she doesn’t have that.

This woman is Erin Brockovich and through moxie, grit, and desperation, she knows she can do anything. She could move mountains if someone gave her the tools to do so. She has a drive and a determination that should make her very successful but life has intervened on more than one occasion in her life to prevent her from the kind of success that driven people like herself tend to find. That being the kind of success that comes with a financial reward.

So, let’s talk about framing and script. What does the framing of this opening scene tell us? We know that this woman, whom we have yet to meet formally, is going to be our protagonist. We know this because she’s played by superstar actress Julia Roberts but also because the camera is biased toward her. She is center frame, even as there is another actor in the scene and he does speak, the camera remains on her. The bias implies her importance, almost as much as being played by Julia Roberts does.

The dialogue tells us about who Julia Roberts is playing, a single mom with more than one child. She lacks sufficient job training and education but she has people skills, confidence, and charm. If this were an interview to be the lead character in this movie, she gets the job, she’s clearly a person that the camera loves and wants to follow. It’s an unforced chemistry between camera and star, a connection that exists even before the movie begins, because Julia Roberts is among the most famous human beings on the planet, at the time the movie was made, but also because of her ability to embody a character so fully that we unknowingly ask the camera to stay with her and find out what she does next.

As an opening scene in a movie, the first two minutes of Erin Brockovich are not flashy or stylish, or even that memorable unless you are planning to write a story about them. But what this scene is without question is efficient. The scene establishes Erin as someone who talks fast, takes nothing for granted, and fully believes in herself. We learn in a very fluid and organic fashion that she is a mother of more than one child. This is an important part of who this character is. Being a single parent is one of the driving challenges of Erin’s story and this scene establishes that exceptionally well without having to shoehorn the information in.

There are few cuts in this two minute sequence. Soderbergh trains the camera on Erin. He moves in closer to her as she lays out what few qualifications she has for this job. Then, we finally cut to the man interviewing her, a doctor in a white lab coat and a look that tips his hand as to how he has already dismissed Erin as a job candidate. This doesn’t stop Erin from continuing to plead her case but the final cut from Erin back to the doctor, is a slam of the door, it’s a harsh cut in the middle of a piece of dialogue. It ends abruptly in one word, mid-sentence, “Look.”

You know what the rest of that sentence is going to be. The tone conveys an aggravated politeness that says you’re not qualified for this job and won’t be getting it but I will give you a courteous ‘we’ll call you if’ closer, so as not to end the interaction in an angry fashion. All of that from the word ‘Look.’ But that word isn’t done lifting a heavy load in Erin Brockovich. As that word happens on hard cut to Erin outside the office looking dejected, we are thrust into the rest of the movie where Erin looks for a fulfilling job and finds it, looks for the truth and finds it, and tries not to look for love and finds it anyway.

One little word and Steven Soderbergh has told us what’s coming. One singular word kickstarts this story about searching and finding. One word will end up in a chain reaction that ends up saving lives and bringing justice for people who were desperately wronged. All because that one word, ‘Look,’ is exactly what Erin Brockovich did. She looked. And she found and looked again. And she kept on looking. And she’s still looking today. Looking for truth, looking for justice, and looking out for the little guy.

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