Erin Brockovich at 20 how a grim true story became a glossy star vehicle
over 5 years in The guardian
Steven Soderbergh’s Oscar-winning 2000 drama gave Julia Roberts one of her greatest roles and found levity in a dark subject
In 1989, Steven Soderbergh changed the independent film business forever with sex, lies and videotape. A decade later, he conquered Hollywood. But it’s important not to yadda yadda away the years in between, when his sophomore slump (1991’s Kafka) extended to a junior slump (1993’s King of the Hill) and a senior slump (1995’s The Underneath), and he seemed lost a wilderness of his own design. Arguments can (and should) be made for his work during this period – the Depression-era drama King of the Hill is one of his best films, and all three are varied and conceptually adventurous – but Soderbergh himself felt so discombobulated by failure that he wrote, directed, starred, edited and photographed 1996’s Schizopolis, an experimental doodle, just to give his career a hard reboot. Two years later, he made the superb Elmore Leonard adaptation Out of Sight for Universal Pictures, and he was off and running again.
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