Jul. 17, 2003 - 7:57 pm

cover
Silkwood (1983)

this film was one of those numerous ones that i wrote down on my "to see list" while Greg and I were watching the Heroes & Villains list a month or so ago on tv. Karen Silkwood was one of the heroes and Greg instantly asked me if i had seen this because it's so good. overall i'd say i enjoyed it, but i didn't think it was that amazing. my first instinct was not to watch it because of the cast (Meryl Streep, Kurt Russell, and Cher). surprisingly though, they all turned out to do a great job. i really enjoyed all of their acting and their characters. actually i think it's just because their characters were well written, not really because they had outstanding performances. yeah, nevermind about that.

this is a true story about a group of people that live in a small town and work with plutonium, molding it for nuclear reactors. Karen slowly begins to realize that people are actually noticably being harmed by the plutonium and that the money hungry plant owners are doing very little to protect their employees. she then joins the company union and begins to take a dangerously active role in bringing the plant down. not only does this hurt her life at the plant with coworkers (they will be out of a job if the plant closes), but it starts to encroach on what little free time she has to spend with her loved ones at home as well.

normally i tend to enjoy movies that feel somewhat contained as far as the storyspace goes, but this one didn't work as well for some reason. maybe it's because there's so much plutonium in the air and you feel like you're being irradiated too. almost the entire film takes place in Karen's small house and in a few key areas of the plant. there's no creative cinematography or editing (despite the fact that the editing was nominated for the Oscar) and i just felt that the film was visually very bland. nothing to feast your eyes on.

as i said, the cast is not the most appealing to me, but the story and script are pretty good. it's a decent movie, but not one that i'll probably ever see again. i think i got what i needed from it the first time.