Could have been much better

i just saw this on tv, mainly because my wife wanted to see it. I was a bit sceptical beforehand and as it turned out, most of my misgivings appeared to be true. sure, there are some fine actors in this film, sissy spacek, francis mcdormand to mention just two, but the story or rather the treatment of it, the script is not what it could have been. for instance - look at the women in the mine - those who are followed more closely that is - charlize theron and one of her colleagues look like supermodels and the rest of them like lesbian soviet athletes - the latter are not sexually harassed (obviously) - how credible is this casting???!!! the dramatic change in her father's opinion of his daughter does not ring true either, plus there are too many other scenes that are just too stereotype and have been used in too many other films (for instance the scene where her mother complains about doing her fathers laundry -next scene we see him putting his laundry in and finding a pair of wrapped sandwiches in the table (while his wife has taken to a motel on town). haven't we seen that exact seen in a million films before? not to mention the just too predicble court room drama at the end. to sum up it would probably have been more interesting to see a documentary on this (just like it would have with the pursuit of happiness - another syrupy, predictable and badly written film "based on a true story".