Norma Rae (Sally Field) is a single mother who lives and works with her parents at the O.P. Henley Textile Mill in a small Southern town, where they are overworked and underpaid. Norma Rae tries to save her money so that her children can go to college, but she feels little self-worth. Norma Rae often spends her nights drinking and sleeping with married men who slap her around and treat her more like a prostitute. She has pretty much given up on herself, until the Summer of 1978, when New York union organizer Reuben (Ron Leibman) comes to town. While she is at first resistant to signing up, once she joins the unionized labor movement, Norma Rae discovers a strength she never knew she had. She risks everything to help the factory workers fight for better wages and working conditions, and in the process becomes a much more confident woman.

 
Sally Field gives an excellent dramatic performance in the film. She gives a believable portrayal of both the weak woman at the beginning of the film, as well as the strong, confident one at the end. You can really see the change in Norma Rae as she grows more self-assure and rises from the shell of a woman she is at the start of the film. The film also sets up this interesting will they/won’t they relationship between Norma Rae and Reuben, based on the mutual respect these characters have for one another. I found this relationship to be played out quite naturally by Fields and Leibman.

The actions of factory bosses and their attempts to subvert Norma Rae also felt very real. For example, when Norma Rae starts to show signs of dissidence, her boss offers her a promotion that puts her in charge of measuring the performance of her friends (and father)—setting her up to ruin her relationships with the other workers.

However, overall I found the film a bit too long, and the pace was oddly both too slow and too fast at the same time. The process of unionizing the factory workers seemed to move rather slowly, while at the same time Norma Rae’s relationship with Sonny (Beau Bridges) seemed to move at an extremely accelerated pace.

As for physical presentation of this 35th Anniversary Blu-ray, I found the picture quality to be quite nice. The darkness and graininess of some scenes helped to add to the gritty, depressing feeling of working in the mill. However, the mono audio soundtrack was sufficient, but nothing remarkable. The Blu-ray disc only offers a pair of bonus features—the theatrical trailer and an interesting 25-minute documentary on the drama surrounding the production of the film.

While Norma Rae isn’t a film I see myself watching again and again, it remains an interesting piece of cinematic history that should be seen at least once, and this Blu-ray offers the best presentation of the material available.

What’s Included:

Film: (1:54:37)

Blu-ray:
• 1080p / Widescreen 2.40:1
• Audio: English DTS-HD Master Audio 1.0, Spanish DTS-HD Master Audio 1.0, French DTS-HD Master Audio 1.0, Italian DTS-HD Master Audio 1.0
• Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, French, Dutch, Italian

Extras:

• Hollywood Backstory: Norma Rae (25:13)
  Episode of the Hollywood Backstories TV series from 2001 which provides an interesting look at the drama and history surrounding the production of the film—the idea for the script, selling it to a studio, casting a lead actress, the production itself, and the box office results. Features interviews with Sally Field, Ron Leibman and the creators of the film.
• Theatrical Trailer (2:37)

Final Thoughts:

While I wasn’t blown away by Norma Rae, I thought that Sally Field gave a great performance. The subject matter is interesting, but I found the film a bit too slow. The Blu-ray looks great, but only provides a single (but interesting) bonus feature—a short 25-minute documentary. Fans of the film may want to pick this up for the upgrade in picture quality, but others may want to rent it first.