'Norma Rae' (dir. Martin Ritt, 1979) Review

Alex
Jun 6, 2024
3 min read

Updated: Nov 21, 2025

Norma Rae is one of my all-time favourite films, and a few months ago I attempted the daunting task of writing a review of the film on my Instagram (@/alexj.reviews), so here is the now slightly adapted version:

Norma Rae tells the story of a young woman working in dire conditions at a textile mill in North Carolina. It was the only textile company left in America at the time whose workers did not have a formal union, so the factory is met with the arrival of Reuben Warshowsky (Ron Leibman), who is a union representative hoping to help the mill unionise, which he eventually does by partnering up with Norma Rae (Sally Field). The film has multiple narrative strands to it, which ultimately come together to form a rich and captivating film that helps make Norma Rae not only a fully fleshed out, beautifully written character but also one of film history's greatest onscreen heroines. We see her torn to shreds by a lover (a married man) at the start of the film, whose words about her worthlessness she clearly has to fight not to believe. We also see her taking care of her children as a single mother and finding new love in the form of Sonny Webster (played by the lovely Beau Bridges), a fellow mill worker who struggles to accept his new wife's ever-growing political consciousness. And, of course, we see her develop a close relationship with Reuben as they fight to implement a union, despite the force with which they are met by the factory's managers. In so many ways, the film shows us how this young woman finds her voice.

Whilst the scene in which Norma stands on the table holding the 'UNION' sign in the middle of the factory is widely known and popular (for good reason), my favourite scene is a 5 minute sequence that comes shortly after this scene and Norma's arrest. Norma arrives home, gets her children out of bed and sits them on the sofa with her. Without a single cut or camera movement, Norma talks to her children about their fathers, whether she was married to them or not, and other men who had been in her life since. She does this to prepare her children for the inevitable smear campaign that she's going to face now that she has been in jail, where facts about her past are going to be used against her to discredit her campaign to form a union. She explains to her children that she was standing up for what she believed was right, to create a better environment for herself, her colleagues and potentially her children in the future. Such a scene could have come across as quite on-the-nose and preachy, but Sally Field is able to convey the gentility, authenticity and inherent guts of this woman that it avoids any such negative consequences.

Norma Rae isn't the cliched 'strong, independent woman' (a phrase I have come to loathe), but a realistically complex woman. She may have stood on the table, encouraged people to join her strike as well as get arrested, but after she is released from jail she breaks down in a flood on tears, almost embarrassed that it had happened. Reuben has to explain to her that he has seen far worse happen to much more vulnerable human beings. In this way, the film displays a perfect balance of showing us Norma's weaknesses as well as her enormous amounts of courage.

A quote I love from the film is delivered by Reuben to a worn out Norma after she loses it with a fellow union worker. He tells her that "If the situation ever called for a smart, loud, profane, sloppy, hard working woman, I'd pick you every time kid." She comically replies "Well how come sloppy, nobody wears girdles anymore?!" It's this perfect combination of humour and an inability to be serious about herself, and her inherent boldness and aggressiveness with which she goes after the things she is passionate about, that makes the film and Norma so loveable.

If it wasn't already obvious, I'd thoroughly recommend this film, even if it was just for Sally Field's tremendous performance, for which she won her first Academy Award for Best Actress. And if you're interested in hearing more about the making of the film, I'd also recommend watching Women in Film's recent panel discussion with Sally and the film's producers Alexandra Rose and Tamara Asseyev (we love women-led projects!) which is linked below.