Dark Waters

The brilliance of Dark Waters is that it is able to lay out the case against DuPont without getting too wonky.

Dark Waters is a movie that works marvellously well within its own generic terms, and perhaps after the fey disappointment of Todd Haynes’s previous, rather insufferable fantasy Wonderstruck, this tough, clear movie was what Haynes needed to clear his creative palate.

The combination of Ruffalo’s quietly intense performance and Haynes’ direction illuminates both what drives him and what the cost can be.

It will make you mad as hell. So angry, even, that you might wonder why no one has given this opportunity to Todd Haynes before.

In Haynes’s psychologically and atmospherically astute compositions and careful nursing of the emotional impact on Bilott and wife Sarah (Anne Hathaway), it’s more a brittle ache of a quest than a righteous melodrama.

Dark Waters is an effective outrage machine: If you like “Erin Brockovich,” you’ll probably like this too.

Scenes involving Anne Hathaway in particular land with a painful thud. In an attempt to flesh out the “adoring, supporting wife” role, Haynes shoots himself in the foot, bringing much attention to an underdeveloped character, who, despite all the pseudo-feminist speeches, amounts to, yes, the “adoring, supporting wife.”

An historical movie. Thank you for what you did. It's incredible. Acting, script, just wonderful.

A must watch. It’s the kind of a movie that you didn’t know that you needed in your life, but will be forever glad you watched. This is no Terminator 2 or another 10/10 piece of entertainment, but it’s how everybody in the movie industry can make a real impact in the worlds well being.

“Dark Waters” is stark proof that important films are not always enjoyable. This is a film people should see. Just don’t expect a pleasant journey, much less a mindless escape. In 1999, Rob Bilott (Mark Ruffalo) is a corporate attorney in a Cincinnati firm that specializes in defending chemical companies. When a farmer from Parkersburg, WV, suddenly appears at the office, claiming that humans and animals were being affected by the runoff from the local Dupont plant, Bilott ultimately switches sides and takes the case. At this point, we’re introduced to PFOA (also called C-8), a chemical compound used by 3M (Scotchgard) and Dupont (Teflon). It would be tempting to launch into endless details about the well-documented lying, foot-dragging and general malfeasance of Dupont (as far back as 1961, Dupont’s internal medical studies showed that C-8 posed enormous health risks for their own employees). Since this is a movie review, suffice it to say that corporate transparency and civic responsibility are not key themes in this film. In the hands of a director less skilled than Todd Haynes (“Safe,” “Carol,” “Far from Heaven”), this film might have been a polarizing, over-the-top political diatribe. But Haynes veers away from vitriolic exposition, instead infusing the film with a consistently ominous score and dark, washed-out visuals that convey much more about impotent rage and pervasive hopelessness than any speech could accomplish. As the main character, Mark Ruffalo is excellent. He again conjures up the righteous indignation and poignant disappointment that suffused his character in “Spotlight.” But here, his role is a bit more complex, with Bilott’s Midwestern diffidence and deference initially obscuring his dogged determination to pursue the case. Tim Robbins is powerful as his boss, Tom Terp. Bill Pullman and Anne Hathaway make forgettable appearances. As the initial plaintiff, long-time actor Bill Camp (also seen in this year’s “Joker” and “The Kitchen”) steals the show as a gruff, blunt, no-nonsense man who just wants common sense to prevail. This is a film intended to stir outrage. It succeeds. According to Nathaniel Rich’s January 6, 2016, article in the “New York Times Magazine,” which forms the basis for this film, data from nearly 70,000 West Virginia blood samples has demonstrated that PFOA causes “kidney cancer, thyroid cancer, high cholesterol, pre-eclampsia and ulcerative colitis.” Today, EPA’s website defines a safe PFOA level as .007 parts per billion. On average, Americans harbor 4 parts per billion in their bodies. Nearly every American ever tested has PFOA in the bloodstream. But even now, EPA offers only “health advisories” on PFOA, guidance that its website defines as “non-enforceable and non-regulatory.” Outrageous, indeed.

A pretty unsettling film in many regards, this film chronicled the DuPont company's cover-up of contaminating chemicals found in their water for the longest time. Mark Ruffalo puts on a great performance here, but the film feels pretty standard and straightforward for my liking in terms of a biopic. Overall, it's disturbing but also kind of forgettable.

Todd's welcoming gift to this article alike film is important. Grammatically incorrect and even lofty in its speech. But suitably important and that is enough to peddle. Dark Waters The director Todd Haynes's desk is under tons and tons of paper. The challenging ones are shuffled in a two hour narration and sprinkled incoherently as opposed to a proper structure. It is very rare to see a film that is directed by someone and written by someone else and still lacks a definite pattern. Maybe that is the pattern or simply I don't get it- it's usually the latter one, trust me. But what Todd needs primarily is steadiness. Accepting the calmness, the patience that a job like such offers. Waiting for the formality to settle in and then stir the soup. He is just not ready to let it sit for a while. What we then get is always, everything is said to be in motion, no matter how inedible it grows. It is preposterous how the family drama, the conflict that could have easily rattled you, instead just disenchants you from buying into what they care about. It takes a lot of time for them to finally get into our head, almost in its final act, do we get to sit and mourn, meaningfully. To be honest, I am also going to blame the lack of chemistry between Anne Hathaway and Mark Ruffalo. Ruffalo who is basically a wild bear wearing a suit with manners and etiquette like some member of a White House joining for a big dinner, Hathaway unfortunately feels too sober to enjoy and let it affect her. She is simply not open enough. She had to hold the inner "warning" monologue of Ruffalo and instead she is found to be a delicious side dish that just doesn't fit into this cruel chemically conspired world.