What Parents Need to Know
Parents need to know that this mature drama begins with a woman leaving her husband after he has beaten her (beating is unseen, but her bloody, bruised face is visible). The movie includes tense family scenes, when the woman argues with her father (a miner who believes she should have stayed with her husband), and with her son (who eventually learns the identity of his father, a high school teacher who raped his mother when she was a student: this violent scene appears in flashback pieces, and might upset younger viewers). The film includes repeated scenes of harsh harassment of women workers at the mine: graffiti, rough language, semen left in a locker, a PortAJohn turned over with a woman inside, and one man assaults a woman, pressing her onto a pile of rocks and leaving her dirty and bruised. High school hockey games include some typical roughness. A woman develops Lou Gherig's disease and we see her deterioration.
- Families can talk about the courage it takes for Josey to stand up to her employers and her coworkers, including men and women who just want to keep their jobs. She also faces condemnation from her miner father: how does their reconciliation begin when he sees her harassed by other men? How does Josey's relationship with her own kids change as she persists in her struggle for equal treatment on the job and in town?