SOURCE: Wade, Roger. “A Law Unto Herself.” Sight and Sound 10, no. 5 (May 2000): 14–16.

In the following positive review, Wade argues that Erin Brockovich is a subtle film that displays the craftsmanship of all involved.

Of all Steven Soderbergh's films Erin Brockovich is his most mainstream and accessible, the kind of true-story David and Goliath tale that's likely to be written off as a crowd-pleaser. For one thing, it's very much a Julia Roberts vehicle. She plays Erin, a twice-divorced mother of three who elbows her way into a clerical job with a small law firm and ends up spearheading a case in which a large utility company is accused of exposing people living near one of its plants to dangerous amounts of toxic chromium. On almost every level the film is an exceptional work of craftsmanship: Soderbergh's disarmingly accomplished direction, Susannah Grant's sparkling script, Ed Lachman's subtle cinematography. But...