Review 551: Dark Waters
Based on the article, The Lawyer Who Became DuPont’s Worst Nightmare by Nathanial Rich, In 1998, Robert Bilott (Mark Ruffalo), a corporate lawyer who works for Taft Stettinius & Hollister who risks his career and family to uncover a dark secret hidden by DuPont, one of the world’s largest largest corporations and to bring justice to a community dangerously exposed for decades to to deadly chemicals.
The plot is a What Dark Waters captures that is frighteningly realistic is that ultimately there is no clear victory for Bilott’s campaign. He’ll be fighting it for as long as it take until a major change occurs which may not happen for a very, very long time. A large part of that stems for the fact that he’s fighting against incredibly powerful corporations who can worm they’re way out of even the tightest of spots.
Themes of Vigilance and Persistance play prominant roles in this film:
In some ways, Dark Waters can be interpreted as a "Monster Movie". In the case, the monster is Coporate America and Coporate Greed which are much more intangible than what we as an audience are use to. That Monster is personified by the lawyers that represent DuPont as well as its executives. As the film progresses
Not surprisingly, this film opens with a prologue set in the 1970's that feels earily similar to Spielberg's Jaws.
This film shows that we have these chemicals in our systems because of DuPont and what they did and it rightfully treats it as a truly terrifying prospect. A lot of people get ill from these chemicals and DuPont was allowed to get away with it because a lot of things were just swept under the rug.
Todd Haynes direction is effectively making use of pans and overheads to the lighting is excellent and reflects the grim, midwestern enviroments the film takes place in. The cinematography is beautiful and captures the and the sense of foreboding the film requires. The score by Marcelo Zarvos is appropriately quiet and subtle. The production design (recreating the late 90s - late 00s) is terrific and gives each act a different look and feel and making you feel as if we as an audience are traveling through a whole of legal cases that are yet to be solved.
Mark Ruffalo delivers a highly engaging and powerful performance playing Robert Bilott, a man whose so persistent, so tenacious and stubborn about his beliefs and pursuing the cause of justice that he risks his marriage and his health in order to. As the film goes on, he becomes deathly obsessed with this case. At first, when the case comes to him he's shaken up because as a corporate lawywer, he's use to defending the corporations and making sure that things go smoothly for them and it's an anti-chemical case that's been thrust upon him which is exactly the opposite of what he's use to dealing with.
Anne Hathaway also provides a great deal of emotional depth and weigh to the film playing Sarah, Robert’s long suffering wife whose desperately trying to keep her marriage and family together at all costs. Sarah is someone who is vivacious and full of contradictions and Hathaway makes us as an audience feel the stress her husbands in every scene she's in.
Tim Robbins
Bill Camp's Wilbur Tennant is pretty much the catalyst for Bilott's investigation throughout the film.
William Jackson "Chidi from The Good Place" Harper also shows up in this film playing a rather amoral character in the form of associate lawyer James Ross. He's trying to climb the ranks of corporate defense at Taft and has a very rigid view of what his job is at the firm. From his point of view, Taft is a corporate defense firm and to take on what could possibly be such a huge account, a huge client as DuPont and to actually work towards prosecuting them is completely off mission, off brand
Victor Garber is also terrific playing DuPont attorney Phil Donnelly bringing the right amount of smarminess required for this type of role.
Dark Waters effectively treads through Dark Territory, 5/5.
The Anonymous Critic.
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