Review: On The Basis Of Sex

Image courtesy of Focus Features.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a superhero, and Mimi Leder's new film about a pivotal moment in her life doesn't shy away from hagiography - and that's perfectly fine. "On the Basis of Sex" is cut from the Hollywood mold of biopics of influential people, but even when the film relies on cliches that you'd expect in this type of film, it remains inspiring due to its subject's real-life work and story and a number of solid performances.

When we first meet Ruth (Felicity Jones), she is attending a welcoming event for a group of young women who will be the first to study law at Harvard in the late 1950s. First, Ruth sits through a speech in which the school's dean discusses what he believes are the defining traits of the Harvard man, and then she suffers through a dinner during which that same dean (played by Sam Waterston) forces the young woman to stand up and give the type of introductory speech that you know the college's new male students haven't been asked to give. Ruth jokes that she is attending the prestigious school so that she can learn about her husband Martin's (Armie Hammer) work and, therefore, be a "a more patient and understanding wife."

But Ruth is turned down by employer after employer after graduating at the top of her class. During one particularly wretched interview, the man questioning her appears to be sympathetic to her plight after she explains how she has been rejected by numerous top firms due to her gender, but then gives her a lame excuse about how the wives of the other lawyers at the firm might become jealous if she is around the office. Dejected, Ruth takes a job teaching law at Rutgers University as Martin's star rises as a tax attorney and the couple's young daughter becomes wrapped up in the political revolution of the late 1960s.

Attempting to be comforting, Martin tells Ruth that she'll teach generations of young women who will change the world, but she is upset because, naturally, she wants to do the same thing herself. Her opportunity arises after Martin points out a case in which a man has been discriminated against due to a caretaker law that is based around gender stereotypes. The man who the Ginsburgs end up representing has never been married and cares for his ailing mother - and yet, due to the accepted mores of the early 1970s, he is not able to deduct expenses on his taxes since men, at that time, were considered to be the breadwinners, while women were the caretakers. Ruth sees an opening for changing the nation's laws that define women and men by their gender. The rest, as they say, is history.

Jones and Hammer make a convincing Ruth and Martin Ginsburg, and the supportive relationship between the two is the heart of the film. However, there are a number of solid supporting performances here as well, including Kathy Bates as pioneering attorney Dorothy Kenyon and Chris Mulkey as Charles Moritz, the man represented by the Ginsburgs.

Yes, "On the Basis of Sex" is a rah-rah Hollywood biopic about a woman who was a trailblazer and whose story has since become the stuff of legend - hell, most recently, that legend was given a new chapter as the Notorious RBG voted from the hospital where she was being treated for lung cancer to block Donald Trump's asylum ban. And the film isn't much for subtlety. But that's no matter. The picture is nowhere near as groundbreaking as its subject, but it's an enjoyable and well-made underdog movie.