Jean-Paul’s rating: 4/5 stars

Bottom Line: Notorious RBG in the house! An informative look at the young career of your favorite Supreme Court Justice and mine, Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Felicity Jones) is not a superhero, but if she were, this would be her origin story. “On the Basis of Sex” follows her life from entering Harvard Law and encountering sexism through trying to find a job and encountering sexism and up to her first major case where she fought sexism. That isn’t to say the entire movie is about sexism. Women would say it’s starts with daily life, and continues about daily life and ends with a major case about sexism. So it goes.

I was disappointed to find that some of the parts of the movie aren’t true. For instance, when Ruth’s husband, Martin (Armie Hammer *swoon*), gets testicular cancer in his third year at Harvard Law, the movie portrays Ruth taking over his classes and teaching him. In reality, it was more of a group effort between her and Martin’s classmates to help him out. What I was happy to find was true is that Martin did indeed hand Ruth the tax law case upon which the movie is based. When it happened in the movie I said to myself, “Oh, this better be true!” And it was. What I wondered most how true to life the movie was is the relationship between Ruth and her daughter, Jane (Cailee Spaeny). Much of the movie takes place when Jane was a teenager and, well, you know teenagers. Jane is a stubborn daughter of a stubborn mom and there is this one moment as they are leaving Dorothy Kenyon’s (Kathy Bates) office where mom sees daughter in a different light and sees how much more freedom and independence her daughter has than she did. It’s a very touching moment that is a bit too perfect for real life, but I hope it sums up their real relationship because it’s just beautiful.

Legal dorks will be happy to know that there is a fair amount of legal dork-ese in the film. Probably about as much as they could get away with without scaring away the normals. This is also a movie that celebrates Ruth Bader Ginsburg more than it analyzes here, but that’s alright with me. I am not a role model person. People are people and all do great and not so great things. The great things should be emulated, but the people who do those great things should not because it tends to lead to idolatry wherein the worshipers cast aside the not so great things. But since we are a role model society, you’d be hard pressed to find someone more worth it than she.