User reviews

In trying to get the textile mill she and her family work for unionized, Sally Field's Norma Rae Webster also tries to earn self-respect at any cost. She's been leading a dead-end existence: a single mother, still living with her family, sleeping with married men who abuse her. But after being inspired by a union-organizer (Ron Liebman, in an Oscar-worthy supporting performance), Norma Rae is awakened to the possibilities of life, and, what's more, everything that is wrong with the mill that seems to suck the energy and hope from those who stand there day after day trying to earn an honest dollar. There are problems with the picture: Beau Bridges' role as new husband Sonny is treated in a trivial manner (he's supposed to be a voice of reason, but he's too smooth, maybe condescending, and it's an unconvincing character); Oscar-winner Field's fiestiness occasionally feels overdrawn and/or one-note, but in many of the scenes outside the factory she does indeed excel, seeming vibrantly natural and exuberant. Martin Ritt's direction is focused and firmly rooted (he never sugarcoats Norma Rae's character, and sometimes she's not that likable) and the script manages to sidestep preachiness to get its points across entertainingly. The art direction is really the second star of the film: vivid, palpably hot and sweaty, with bits of cotton floating about in the air. The mill in question becomes very familiar to us, as do the people who work there. "Norma Rae" is involved and long, yet it is memorably bittersweet, and with a simple, haunting finish. *** from ****

It's the summer of 1978. Norma Rae (Sally Field) works in a textile mill with her whole family. Her mother is going deaf from the noisy factory. Her father Vernon (Pat Hingle) threatens union organizer Reuben Warshowsky (Ron Leibman) who comes knocking on their door. She's a single mom and she ends her affair with a married man. She marries fellow worker Sonny (Beau Bridges). She starts helping Reuben causing tension in her relationships.

Sally Field is brilliant as an ordinary woman. She is eminently likable. The movie is a straight forward union story. It has a good sense of realism. It helps to have the noisy mill going. It's a great movie.

Typical under-dog story that is so well-made that its success makes for a very memorable cinematic experience. The titled character (Sally Field in a super Oscar-winning part) tries to get her fellow textile workers to unionize in her small town, but there are consequences abound. A good supporting cast which includes Ron Leibman, Pat Hingle and Beau Bridges all add to Field's show-stopping performance. Field proved that she could handle delicate material and carry a film to cinematic history. 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Great to watch a young and beautiful Sally Field. She carries this entire movie without really exerting herself. This demonstrates enormous talent and charisma. It is very engaging film with some really touching moments. Its subject matter sounds quite dry but it is not an overly wordy or heavy film, it strikes a nice tone. Nothing is overblown it is just a simply story about a brave lady and people who stood up for themselves and others against harsh working conditions and corporate greed. But without being political or finger-pointing, it is a positive and ultimately uplifting film.

This film is in no way a documentary, but the filming style and plot line lend to its feeling so. Sally Field's acting in this movie is impeccable. She becomes Norma Rae. We see her fear, her disgust, her anger at the mill's treatment of its employees, and the passion she has for what she believes in. Although the best known scene from the movie is her standing at the mill with the "Union" sign, I believe the most memorable scene is towards the end when she talks to her children, telling them what to expect. The movie tends to turn away from her children, but this scene focuses in on her relationship with them. Beau Bridges is great, and the character of the Union leader (can't remember his name) is terrific. The sexual tension between Norma Rae and he is palpable. I strongly recommend this film to any Sally Field fans, or anyone interested in social issue films.

Sally Field's first Oscar came way via "Norma Rae."

The factory where she and her dad work does not know or want to know about unions. Workers are routinely abused and there is no way out for these hard-working laborers.

Along comes Jewish Ron Leibman, from the north, with the idea of forming a union. He meets up with much hostility. We see the southern hatred of unions in general and there is an underlining feeling of anti-Jewishness here as Jews have always been in the forefront of labor issues in America.

Pat Hingle's fatal coronary spurs daughter Norma to action. Her stopping work and turning around with the sign union is memorable.

This picture is timely due to the rash attacks on the labor movement from the federal government on down to management. Made at a time when President Reagan destroyed the Air Traffic Controller's Union, the film is most appropriate.

For such a highly acclaimed film, I found it remarkably unmoving. The audience is never fully engaged in the character of Norma Rae, her relationships, or the situation of the workers in the mill. The story of the Southern mill workers hardships and struggle to unionize seems perfect for a emotionally stirring drama; however, this potential was completely unrealized by the film's inability to connect with it's audience on any real emotional level. It is easy to see why Sally Field won Best Actress, but the film never really found its niche; rather, it glossed over many aspects of the story giving highlights of each, but leaving me to wonder what the whole story might actually have been.

Norma Rae is without a doubt one of my favorite movies of all time. I grew up in a blue collar working class family so this movie really hits home for me.

An outstanding performance by Sally Field and a very powerful storyline of Unionizing a textile mill in the south make Norma Rae a movie watcher's experience rather than pure entertainment.

The masterful way in which southern small town details and some characteristics are displayed makes the authors point seem not only valid but confirmed! You can't help but watch vignettes of the film and say to yourself, yup, a huh! Specs of behavior, dress, mannerisms all are carefully unrolled to create a scene that endorses their political goals.

Yes, "Norma Rae", although entertaining jams leftist political views down ones throat. In doing so it makes out small town Southerners on average to be drunken simpletons that live reckless promiscuous lives. Unable to take care of themselves, the hero from New York (Ron Leibman) sets things straight and awakens the otherwise naive Christian southerner played by Sally Field.

Many clichés throughout the movie are utilized. It's no wonder the media and the educational system embraced and praised this movie to such a large extent. It's another opportunity to influence young people.

Sally Field's stellar performance is the highlight of this terrific movie, but Ron Leibman was just as effective in my opinion. In fact, the whole cast does a fine job, so if you're looking for superb acting, then look no further. The film is good from start to finish, but a few wonderful moments towards the end make it seem even better than it already is. Perhaps slightly overlong, but overall a great movie.

One of those rousing films in which a blue-collar normal Joe (or in this case perhaps we should say normal Joan) stands up against the big boys in the corporate office for what is right and just. Movies like "Erin Brockovich" wouldn't exist today if movies like "Norma Rae" hadn't existed first.

And "Norma Rae" is a lot easier to swallow, because it's done without all the Hollywood ritz and glamour. Director Martin Ritt specialized in making movies about blue-collar folks that looked like blue collar movies, and Sally Field, playing the factory worker who's sympathetic to an invading union organizer from the north and becomes his ace card in rallying the other workers, is a much better actress than Julia Roberts, and we're actually able to believe her in the role.

The image of Field standing up on a table silently holding up a placard that says "Union" has become indelible.

Grade: B+

After watching this movie it is interesting that to look on the union organization as an actual evil to help destroy the USA textile mills in favor of import/export Global New York interests ,it makes more sense historically.Actual propaganda that helped destroy the companies owned by non-tribal owners.

I find it interesting to discover so many comments on a 26-year-old film. I guess it's a sign of a quality production if it's still touching people. From here in the heart of the disappearing textile industry, Norma Rae rings truer than true. The first time I saw the movie, it was like looking out the window of my three-room mill house and seeing my neighbors. When Normae Rae is in the bar discussing her husband's death, she was a carbon copy of one of my friends -- swigging beer and having sex to forget about the problems of life. The reaction of people to the union was so typical. Most people didn't and still don't want to hear anything about it, afraid it would lead to a shut-down.

Finally, a commentary on the 2004 review by jslack. For the most part, I agree with it. But not about Ron Leibman being either miscast or unattractive. I'm curious to know if jslack is a man or a woman. Of course, Leibman of 1979 is not classically handsome, but he has a bearing and charisma that is almost breathtaking. I can't imagine anyone else in the role. The point is his difference, that he's not the same as all the cookie-cutter good old boys. This is not an affair of bodies or even hearts. It's an affair of the minds.

Martin Ritt's kitchen-sink drama NORMA RAE is my fourth entry of his filmography, it won Sally Field her first Oscar, and is reckoned as a shining specimen perfectly designed to gratify Awards recognition, aka "Norma Rae moment" for its actors, usually adapted from real events.

The movies takes place in a small town in North Carolina, based on the true story of Crystal Lee Sutton (1940-2009), our heroine Norma Rae (Field) is a single mother of two kids (one from the wedlock and the other is an illegitimate son borne out of a casual fling), now her husband is long dead, and she trysts with a married man but often got beaten due to the rife male chauvinism among the hillbillies, should audience judge her too? Is she a dimwit slut or a liberal-minded feminist?

Norma Rae, and her parents (Hingle and Baxley), all work in their local cotton mill factory, receive minimum-wage and their poor working conditions are ignored by the management, life could be that for her, keeping working until her health deteriorates under the awful condition and kicks the bucket, then hopefully her children will be old enough to take her place in the factory, do the same job and continues the circle of life. But the arrival of Reuben Warshowsky (Leibman), a New York union organiser, galvanises her life and the prospect of forming a labor union beckons a possibly better future, so she is bent on functioning as Reuben's right-hand man. Norma Rae also meets a fellow worker, Sonny (Bridges), a divorcé with a young daughter, and soon they form a family, but her whole-hearted devotion to the ongoing campaign for the union engenders clashes with the management of the factory, and she has to be crucified for the progressive cause when the antagonism reaching its boiling point. The Union wins in the end, but Norma Rae loses her job and Reuben leaves when his mission is achieved, will her future become better afterwards, the film doesn't reveal any detail, but a reconciliation with Sonny bespeaks at least no marital disruption will occur.

Sally Field, injects such a redoubtable force in her acting, like Reuben patronisingly tells her, she is too good for the place, one can totally get impressed by her punchy effort in every line, gesture and expression, which transcends Norma Rae from an ordinary gal to a highly relatable and extremely likable cinematic heroine, that's the reason why we love to see these stories being told again and again on the screen. The script carefully treads the camaraderie between Norma Rae and Reuben, to avoid any scandals, but Leibman's Reuben, in the meaty supporting role, should be an equally likable character, doesn't register the same impact, wanting of sincerity in his acting could be the culprit, whereas Beau Bridges' Sonny and Pat Hingle's Vernon, Norma Rae's father, both cast more weight in their much leaner screen-time.

NORMA RAE is a juggernaut success, receives four Oscar nominations (including the prestigious BEST PICTURE) and wins two (Field's BEST LEADING ACTRESS and David Shire's theme song IT GOES LIKE IT GOES, beautifully sung by Jennifer Warnes), the relevance of labor union has ebbed away since then, but it definitely sparks off a neo-realistic trend for American indie films, with real- life location and tapping into the misery of low-class people which average cinema-goers consider too harrowing to watch on the silver screen, in retrospective, it is something we should praise for!

I own a copy of this movie and I watch it at least twice a year. An intelligent story, without cookie-cutter characters. It still amazes and thrills me each time I see it. The fact that there was no forced romance thrust upon us, is also worth noting. Sally Field created a woman who is now part of movie history.

Although based on real events and a real person, "Norma Rae's" tale of corporate greed versus oppressed workers has been fictionalized for reasons of privacy. However, fictionalized or not, "Norma Rae's" power and influence continue since the U.S. textile industry has forever been branded in the minds of Americans as an outmoded industrial complex, whose windowless mills are filled with the deafening noise of hand-tended machines that are layered with cotton fibers and whose workers breathe in and permanently damage their lungs with stale air that is filled with cotton dust. Although those conditions certainly did exist, they no longer occur in that industry today. However, despite the modernization of textile manufacturing in the U.S. over the past couple decades, the image of the noisy, dusty mill that is depicted in the film remains as the general perception of a textile operation. Unfortunately, while modern textile mills are free of cotton dust and the noise levels have been reduced to the low hum of computers, textile workers like Norma Rae and the others portrayed in this film have also been replaced with robotics, lasers, and a few highly skilled technicians to monitor the computerized operations. While the unionization depicted in the film successfully raised wages and increased benefits, eventually those higher costs led to efforts to cut expenses through mechanization.

However, despite the demonizing of an industry, the film retains its power, and the story of Norma Rae's personal growth as a woman is probably even more memorable than the efforts to unionize one Southern textile mill. Sally Field inhabits the role of an unwed Southern mill worker with two children, and, as the film progresses, she slowly evolves from an aimless girl, who is used and abused by men, whether they be lovers or employers, into a mature woman who finds a depth and strength that helps her take control of her life and find the confidence to lead. Television viewers who only knew Field as the Flying Nun were surprised at her range and depth, although those who had taken the time to watch the television movie "Sybil" already suspected the breadth of her talent.

While Sally Field finally shed her Gidget and Flying Nun image with this film and certainly is the emotional core of the movie, she is well supported by a cast of pros, especially the two most important men in her life. Unfortunately, because Field is so outstanding, viewers will likely need a second viewing to appreciate just how good both Ron Leibman and Beau Bridges are in "Norma Rae." Ron Leibman as the assertive union organizer from New York is the man who awakens Norma's intellect and propels her into uncharted territory as a woman. Meanwhile, Beau Bridges as Norma Rae's gentle, understanding husband stands by his woman despite his not completely comprehending or appreciating the changes that are underway in his wife's character.

"Norma Rae" is an outstanding film, well directed by Martin Ritt, beautifully written by Frank and Ravetch, and performed with heart by Field, Leibman, and Bridges. Although the movie has probably stained the image of the U.S. textile industry for good, "Norma Rae" also established Sally Field as an actress of the first order and remains an engrossing human story of a woman's growth into maturity and her discovery of previously unrealized potential within herself.

A young single mother and textile worker (Sally Field) agrees to help unionize her mill despite the problems and dangers involved.

The story is based on Crystal Lee Sutton's life as a textile worker in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, where the battle for the workers union took place against a J.P. Stevens Textiles mill. How much is true and how much is fiction, I have no idea. My suspicion is that the bulk is fiction, because the film is called "Norma Rae" and not "Crystal Lee".

This film has to be the highlight of Martin Ritt's career. Not only does it have some nice awards (cementing Field's career), but it now sits in the Library of Congress. The only other Ritt film that comes close is "Hud" (1963).

Norma Rae lives in a small Southern town in her parents' home with two kids from different fathers. She's a good Christian (with "a lapse or two" as would say the priest) who goes regularly to the church and sings in the choir. Like her parents, like most of the townspeople, she works on the cotton mill, and she wouldn't be surprised if her children followed the same path. As the song says "it goes like it goes" and this is how things go for Norma Rae.

Martin Ritt directs every scene in the kind of documentary-like minimalism that was slowly fading from the screens in the late 70's, the New Hollywood parenthesis was soon to be closed for more commercial movies, and those like "Norma Rae" represented a last breath of freshness before the age of prefabricated entertainment. The realism of "Norma Rae" is constant, following a straight-to-the-point screenplay. As a result, it never loses its track by creating some glimpses of romances or sentimentality, as if it deliberately embodied the common attitude of the factory workers, real no-nonsense people who talk like they think and try not to think too much.

The film opens with pictures of a little girl; we recognize the eyes and smile of Sally Field. The point is to show that this little girl could have been any little girl, except that her background immediately conditioned her life. That's why she accepts it, and that's why most people accept it. It's not fatality but a form of wisdom, of acceptation that life is mostly made of struggle and effort, and that some places in the country are so modest the sun-rays of the American Dream can't touch them. The town epitomizes the darkest aspects of capitalism: less the minimum wages, the layoffs or the hellish conditions of work than the workers' submission to a modern form of slavery, and their reluctance to form a union.

The situation is unbelievable and intolerable, for us. But that's the crisis-stricken America of the 70's and people were no different from their elders of the Great Depression. And as I mentioned before, people didn't think too much, it obviously took some knowledge to speak about people's rights, and when education was lacking, silence was still a better option. "Norma Rae" chronicles the evolution of a woman who was no more or no less brave, intelligent or capable than her co-workers,but she was the first to follow an intruding union organizer from New York Ron Leibman as Reuben Warshowsky, because at least, she was the first to have faith in his fight.

And this faith doesn't come from nowhere. The film starts with Norma Rae's mother (Barbara Baxley) temporarily losing her audition because of all the machinery's noises, later, it's made clear that her father (Pat Hingle) has a heart condition. Norma Rae paid too much a price for the factory and Reuben's arrival coincided with a time where she couldn't take it anymore, before the power, she had the anger and that was enough. As for Reuben, he crystallizes everything Norma Rae is not, he's from the city, educated, street-smart, politically engaged, and even his Jewish background accentuates his status as a 'foreigner' and awakens a latent form of Anti-Semitism. But Norma Rae is fascinated by these differences because anything different from her world can't be that bad.

A total metamorphosis would have damaged the film's credibility, but Norma Rae changes without ever changing. It's impossible to review the film without applauding Sally Fields' performance that swept off all the main acting awards that year. With her nasal voice, short temper, and frail silhouette that contrast with the goons surrounding her, Norma Rae is the perfect incarnation of the 'little people', there's a fire burning inside her, but she's constantly underestimated and patronized. And with the help of Reuben, she'll learn how to raise her voice enough to be heard. The film tactfully avoids some clichés like having a romance, or turning her new husband, played by Beau Bridges, into a jealous and bitter man, it keeps focused on Norma Rae, her personal evolution and America's average working conditions in factories.

The evolution reaches a pinnacle during the film's most iconic moment, that elevated Norma Rae to one of American Cinema's greatest heroines. Forced to leave the factory, as a last resort, she writes UNION in a piece of cardboard and turns it to every worker. One by one, they stop their machine. At the end, the factory is silent but this time, it's an eloquent silence that exudes what has been restrained during so many years. It's a silence that resonates as the loud sound of solidarity. After the incident, Norma is put in jail, and finally breakdowns in Reuben's car, in what I thought, was the most powerful moment of the film, because true to life. Because that's how a real woman would have felt, no matter what Reuben had to endure, she was still the daughter of these American little towns where people have two names.

The following scene might be too sentimental but it's crucial because it illustrates the deep changes in Norma Rae's personality, she tells her children about her past, her present so that they wouldn't learn it from strangers. They listen, nod, and go to sleep, then she's joined by her husband and become again the loving housewife she is. Everything will be different from there, but her conscience is clear and she knows no one would ever judge her, because at least, she stood up for her beliefs.

And if "Norma Rae" is about anything, it's precisely the courage to stand up against injustice, even when we're alone, or especially when we're alone, because an injustice is only the sum of individual ones, and if they can't raise their voice, one must show the example. It goes like it goes but this is the only way it goes to victory ...

Martin Ritt directed Sally Field to a best actress Academy Award in this biography of southern factory textile worker Norma Rae who meets Union organizer Reuben(played by Ron Leibman) who enlists her to help him organize her factory. Though reluctant, an incident with her father(played by Pat Hingle) who also works at the factory, inspires her to help, leading to hatred from management, which only escalates until she stands up with a "Union" sign...Beau Bridges plays her sympathetic husband Sonny.

One the one hand, this is an expertly made and acted drama, with Field unforgettable in the lead. On the other, it must be acknowledged that this is lopsided dramatic storytelling bordering on propaganda, since no(and I mean zero!) attempt is made to show management POV, or indeed to humanize them, which weakens this film a bit, though its central message of course is well taken, and film can still be appreciated as long as viewer is aware of this narrative bias.

A good acting vehicle for Sally Field, who did show her chops. She only occasionally overdoes the Southern accent. The plot is about union organizing in a Southern textile mill. Surprisingly they do not go too far in depicting management recalcitrance, not even portraying violence from them. Less surprisingly, they also ignore union violence and intimidation, a standard tactic. Well, the textile industry did unionize in the Seventies and Eighties, and it died in the Nineties. All those jobs are now in Guatemala and Bangladesh. Interestingly, the only real energy left in the union movement is in government workers, as they have no competition to hold back union excesses.