North Country is a 2005 American drama film directed by Niki Caro

Niki Caro

Niki Caro is film director, producer and screenwriter who was born in Wellington, New Zealand. Her 2002 film Whale Rider was critically praised and won a number of awards at international film festivals....

. The screenplay by Michael Seitzman was inspired by the 2002 book Class Action: The Story of Lois Jenson and the Landmark Case That Changed Sexual Harassment Law by Clara Bingham and Laura Leedy Gansler, which chronicled the case of Jenson v. Eveleth Taconite Company

Jenson v. Eveleth Taconite Co.

Lois E. Jenson v. Eveleth Taconite Co. was the first class-action sexual harassment lawsuit in the United States, filed in 1988 on behalf of Lois Jenson and other female workers at the EVTAC mine in Eveleth, Minnesota on the state's northern Mesabi Range, which is part of the Iron...

.
In 1989, Josey, played by Charlize Theron, returns to her hometown in Northern Minnesota

Minnesota

Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...

 with her children, Sam (Thomas Curtis

Thomas Curtis (actor)

Thomas Wayne Curtis is an American actor. Curtis has starred in The Cactus Kid, Sweet Home Alabama, Red Dragon and The Chumscrubber. He also act in Hansel & Gretel and North Country - along with Oscar winner: Charlize Theron...

) and Karen (Elle Peterson), after escaping from her abusive husband.