The best way to describe North Country is to say it's exactly what you expect. Inspired by a true story about women miners suing their company for sexual harassment, this movie emerges as a sober drama, well-acted and manipulative in all the right places. It has the feel of an "important" film, so much so that it might dole out guilt to those who may profess not to enjoy it. In other words, it's a good-for-you movie.

After all, one would find it difficult to argue against such aspirations. Some things in our societal history are so abhorrent that they almost demand to be addressed at regular intervals throughout the decades, always giving current reminders of where we've been, how far we've come, and how far we still need to go. Even if North Country doesn't accomplish anything else, it justifies the value of keeping the wrongfulness of sexual inequality in the active conscience.

In the early part of the movie, director Niki Caro seems to overplay this hand. The avenues of sexual harassment on display here are putrid, varied, and insipid. One can hardly imagine such an environment even being tolerated by working women, yet that seems to be what was happening here. The assault feels overdone -- you get the feeling that you can't really believe it -- but then there's that nagging feeling that much of this may not be exaggeration at all.

It's what makes North Country's thesis so effective, this all-out presentation of sexual harassment horror. What it ends up doing is leading the viewer through the latter scenes which strive more for an emotional effect rather than a logical one. This is where the movie falters, when it starts heading to a TV-movie victim-driven story area. The beats are too familiar. Tried-and-true obstacles are set up; characters that had been wrong-thinking start coming around. It starts feeling less like a compelling good-for-you movie than it does a good-for-you movie that's going through the motions.

North Country has admirable ambition, but little else really makes it stand out. The acting? It's uniformly good, and star Charlize Theron does a commendable job, but, again, we expect this. It's the subject matter that makes this film -- from the complacency of a society in accepting its sexual roles to the sad idea that the best way to attack a woman's credibility is through her sexual history. Addressing these issues rightfully foments anger, and the movie does its job there, even if the rest feels like familiar medicine.

(Released by Warner Bros. and rated "R" for sequences involving sexual harassment including violence and dialogue, and for language.)

Review also posted on www.windowtothemovies.com.