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Erin won't allow anything to get in her way, not even her relationship with her biker boyfriend, George, the first decent man she has had in her life. Their conflict divides you. (He's played by Aaron Eckhart, free of the clutches of that joyless creep, director Neil LaBute, in an effortlessly charming performance.) You don't want her to lose this burly, inviting guy, but you're so caught up in her work that you understand why she has to risk it.

Roberts has a knockout of a scene in which she's driving back from working the case late one night, talking to George on the phone as he tells her that her infant daughter spoke her first words that day. It's a scene you can imagine conceived to play either as a conventional sop to a mother's guilt over neglecting her role or as a soapbox platitude that attempts to deny any guilt. Roberts confounds both readings. At first she bursts into tears -- of sadness at missing her daughter speaking for the first time, and of sheer joy at the thought of it. And then she breaks into that radiant grin, and you know that Erin can live with the sadness of missing it, that the fact of its happening will have to be enough for her. I can't think of any movie scene to compare this one to. At the same time, Roberts suggests both a woman who's a bundle of emotions and a woman who's as comfortable with who she is as John Wayne is in "Rio Bravo."

As the movie goes on, Erin's heroism comes from the authority she commands. Exasperated by her candor, Ed exclaims, "You say any goddamned thing that comes into your head." He's wrong. Erin takes people aback because she says the pertinent thing. Just as Stanwyck did, Roberts cuts right through the bull. The script contains a number of scenes in which Erin stands up to PG&E's flunky lawyers and to the hotshot attorney (Peter Coyote) Ed hires to assist with the lawsuit, and Roberts never gives in to the temptation to grandstand. Nor does she ever give in to the temptation to become mushy or condescending in her scenes with the people she persuades to join the lawsuit. Even Roberts' compassion is hard-edge here. She's thrilling.

One of the movie's wittiest touches is that in taking on PG&E, Ed gets a taste of the treatment that has been dished out to Erin for years. When the utility company dispatches a young lawyer to offer a paltry settlement -- he looks as if he doesn't even shave yet -- Ed senses his contempt just by the way the pup gazes at the firm's seedy offices. Finney's performance is remarkably generous. Just as Ed's faith in Erin is a gamble that pays off, so is the way Finney cedes center stage to Roberts. He's her foil but never her patsy.

The sparring relationship between Roberts and Finney is a naturalistic version of a classic screwball comedy setup: Finney's Ed, like Clark Gable's boss in "It Happened One Night," is the harried head man who can't help loving the go-for-broke daring of his most talented employee. The exasperated affection that Erin and Ed share is all the stronger for never being stated. Their head butting is the movie's truest love match. Finney uses the bulk he has acquired over the years to convey Ed's authority, and he is wonderful whenever he finds himself at a comic loss, realizing that Erin is utterly unimpressed by that authority.

But Finney isn't simply there for Roberts to score points off of. He's the epitome of those exasperating bosses who are nonetheless smart enough to allow good people free rein, the type of person you secretly love even if you want to throttle him or her half the time. We come to respect him for the same reason Erin does -- not because he's the boss, which is no reason to respect anybody, but because of the common sense he shows. Ed isn't pigheaded, and he's able to think on his feet. Caught up in the whirlwind that is Erin, he has the grace and good sense to realize he'd better keep up with her.

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