Three stars. Rated PG-13, and much too harshly, for fleeting profanity and suggestive content
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.18.19
2018 was quite the year for Ruth Bader Ginsburg, subject of both an award-winning documentary (RBG), and a dramatized depiction of the early years that led to her first significant gender discrimination victory.
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| Young Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Felicity Jones), eager to impress during the initial session of her first class at Harvard Law School, quickly discovers that her almost entirely male classmates regard her with — at best — patronizing amusement. |
The latter arrived during the holiday rush: just in time for Oscar consideration. Unfortunately, director Mimi Leder’s On the Basis of Sex isn’t likely to earn any accolades, despite the significance of its subject. First-time scripter Daniel Stiepleman’s narrative is too bland, and star Felicity Jones — although an excellent physical choice for the role — rarely gets a handle on Ginsburg’s essential passion and dignity.
This film is too ordinary and “safe.” That shouldn’t come as a surprise, given that Steipleman is Ginsburg’s nephew; he clearly took a respectful, strawberry-lensed approach that stops just short of canonizing his aunt. (She deserves it, but still…)
Steipleman also fails to balance his dual focus: both the formative years of Ginsburg’s career, and the sexist barriers that would have thwarted anyone less determined; and the warm mutual devotion shared with husband Martin, her staunchest advocate and — as a highly skilled tax lawyer and litigator himself — a key collaborator. Unfortunately, we get a far better sense of the Ginsburgs’ quieter, intimate moments — Jones and co-star Armie Hammer (as Martin) are quite sweet together — than of Ruth’s legal acumen.
By the time we hit the second-act squabbling between Ruth and rebellious teenage daughter Jane (Cailee Spaeny), the film threatens to devolve into a stereotypical, TV-style family melodrama: definitely not the proper tone for this particular story.
Which is a shame. At other moments, we get tantalizing glimpses of a much stronger and more dynamic film, particularly when feisty Kathy Bates is on screen, as renowned feminist and ACLU co-founder Dorothy Kenyon.
And to be fair, Leder and Stiepleman build to a terrific climax, as Jones’ nervous Ruth prepares to deliver her first courtroom argument in November 1972, before the three judges on the U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. This episode is milked for maximum dramatic impact, and it’s one of the few times that Jones displays the appropriate level of resolve, grit and forthright sincerity.
But that’s getting way ahead of things. We begin in the fall of 1956, as Ruth becomes one of only nine women to enroll alongside roughly 500 men at Harvard Law School. Several economical scenes deftly sketch the devotion shared between Ruth and Martin, and the love that both shower on their toddler daughter Jane.
