It Goes Like It Goes, we are sung at the beginning and end of Norma Rae. Based on a true story, Norma Rae starts out weak but slowly starts rising, much like the title character herself.
Summer, 1978. Norma Rae (Sally Field) is a third-generation employee at the O.P. Henley Textile Mill. Both her father Vernon (Pat Hingle) and her mother Leona (Barbara Baxley) work with her. Norma has had a checkered life which the film reveals over its runtime. Norma married young, had a child and became a widow. She had a second child, who is illegitimate. Norma is frustrated by her working conditions at the mill, but there is nothing that she can do about it.
As she goes through life, in comes brash Jewish New Yorker Reuben Warshawsky (Ron Leibman). He is a union organizer for the Textile Workers Union of America. The TWUA has targeted the Henley Mill for unionizing. However, the mix of a union and a Yankee Jew is toxic in this small Southern town. Both whites and blacks mistrust this outsider. Circumstances bring Reuben and Norma together, though not romantically.
After a brief and disastrous turn as a spot-checker at the mill, circumstances bring Norma together with Sonny Webster (Beau Bridges). They become romantic and eventually marry, blending their three children together. Reuben is having a hard time getting people to unionize. He does what he can but meets resistance from both employer and employee. It is not until a shocking tragedy at the mill occurs that Norma Rae loses her fear of job loss to join Reuben in his cause. Norma Rae soon becomes a union zealot, putting the cause above all. Sometimes, even Reuben has to tell her to pull back. She discovers such figures as Dylan Thomas and discovers her own worth. Norma eventually finds that management's intransigence will come at a heavy personal cost. That, however, will lead to a firm act of defiance that will inspire others to join in the crusade. Will Norma Rae find balance? Will the TWUA find a new chapter in the deep South?
Sally Field, despite her long and varied career, is still seen as a perky personality. She is Gidget. She is The Flying Nun (and for the record, I think she has nothing to be ashamed of with regards the latter). She is also a two-time Oscar winner, placing her in very august company. She has as many Best Actress Oscars as Bette Davis, Vivien Leigh and Olivia de Havilland. Still, people forget that detail. Norma Rae, the first of her Oscar-winning films, was a change of pace for Field. Norma Rae is sometimes a hard woman to like. She can be prickly. She can be defensive. She can be belligerent. She is loose. However, Norma Rae shows her to be a woman growing in self-worth.
We see her start off as someone who waits around the local motel for her married lover. She already has a child out of wedlock. When going to her local Baptist minister, she asks if he thinks she is a good Christian. He looks up and says, "With a lapse or two, I'd say yes". As she finds metaphorical salvation through the TWUA, we see that Norma Rae is coming into her own. This is a woman who will fight for what she believes to be right. Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank, Jr.'s Oscar-nominated screenplay gives us hints of Norma's world when she is unceremoniously promoted to spot-checker. While the position is better paid, it also would make her highly unpopular. She tells them that she wanted a Kotex machine in the restroom and longer smoking breaks. Rather than give these token concessions, management would bump her up. This reveals much in Norma Rae. It reveals the poor condition conditions. It reveals Norma Rae's blunt manner. When she returns to the line shortly after, she is reproached for it. "I was greedy and I was dumb", she replies.
However, she is no firm tower of strength. The entirety of Field's performance is more than when she metaphorically and literally stands up to larger and stronger people. Her terror at being sent to jail, the agony of that experience also come through. Norma Rae is strong but also deeply vulnerable. One of her best scenes, I think, is not when she firmly takes her stand. Instead, I think Field's best moment in Norma Rae is when she is soft and quiet. After coming home from her brief stay in jail, she wakes her two children and stepdaughter. She explains to them what happened and how their schoolfriends will taunt them. Norma Rae tells them, quietly but directly, the truth about everything. I found myself deeply moved by this scene.
Ron Liebman as Reuben would not have that issue. He was strong as the Jewish Yankee whose efforts to blend it with the townsfolk sometimes met with humorous results. He delighted in taunting his "brothers" when under court order he went into the textile mill to see if the union flyer was properly located. Beau Bridges, oddly, did not struggle with a broad Southern accent. If he had one, it was not as big or as noticeable as everyone else. He played Sonny Webster as a bit of a good ol' boy, but one with a more compassionate and loving heart. Sonny is hurt that Norma Rae called Reuben rather than him to bail her out. She admits that while she has never slept with him, Reuben is in her head. Sonny, quietly and lovingly, tells her that he will stand by her through it all. "And there is nobody else in my head. Just you". It is a deeply moving confession of love.
I think the Ravetch and Frank, Jr. screenplay did well as previously mentioned. "What do I get if I do (join the union)?" a fearful Norma Rae asks. "You don't get nothing if you don't", is Reuben's reply. Like Ritt, I do not know if Ravetch & Frank, Jr. liked Southerners. They were portrayed as mostly dimwitted and racists. On their first interactions, Norma Rae tells Reuben that she thought that Jews had horns. I cannot say that the real-life figures based on this story genuinely or not believed that. I am just shocked that in 1978, people anywhere would believe that, let alone say it.
Norma Rae received two Oscars out of its four nominations. One was for Sally Field. The other was for its theme song, It Goes Like It Goes, which opens and closes the films. It is pretty. It is soft. The lyrics are simple and optimistic. It is also deeply forgettable. I rarely don't comment on other nominees when discussing a particular film. However, which song do people remember nowadays: It Goes Like It Goes or Rainbow Connection from The Muppet Movie? I think people remember Sally Field's performance in Norma Rae. I strongly doubt people remember It Goes Like It Goes, let alone think that it is one of Norma Rae's best aspects. I cannot fault the song itself, which is fine. I just wonder what Academy members found in It Goes Like It Goes that made them think it was superior to Rainbow Connection.
Unions have fallen a bit by the wayside. When people do think of them, it is either in terms of corruption or in excessive power. Norma Rae, while strongly pro-union, is also a portrait of a woman growing in strength and courage. It is a strong film that does make you cheer for this small woman who is armed with only the power of her convictions.
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