Based on a true story, Silkwood begins and ends with Karen Silkwood (Meryl Streep) driving along a lonely road in 1974, heading to a meeting with a New York Times reporter to deliver evidence of negligence at the Kerr-McGee Plant in Cimarron, Oklahoma. The balance of the film flashes back to Karen's ribald private life with her lover (Kurt Russell) and her loose-living friends (Cher and Diana Scarwid). This is in contrast to her humdrum job at Kerr-McGee--or it least it was humdrum until Karen
and several other employees become contaminated by radiation. The higher-ups want to sweep this incident under the rug, but Karen thinks that something's fishy, and informs the union of that fact. X-rays of the faulty fuel rods and written proof of the inadequate safety measures that caused Karen's illness are tampered with, forcing Karen to conduct her own private investigation. As she gathers evidence, Karen becomes a pariah to her boyfriend because of her obsession. She finally organizes the evidence into a briefcase, and heads off to her meeting with the Times reporter. She never makes it; the "official" report on her fatal auto accident is that Ms. Silkwood had been drinking and was under the influence of tranquilizers. Kerr-McGee was eventually forced to pay the Silkwood family an enormous settlement because of her contamination, but the full facts behind her convenient accident have never been revealed (though the filmmakers clearly indictate whom they hold responsible). Director Mike Nichols and screenwriters Nora Ephron and Alice Arlen surround this true story with a lively, improvisational atmosphere that gets the best out of Streep, Russell, and Cher, while providing perhaps the fullest on-screen realization of Nichols' theater-based techniques of realistic, character-centered, dialogue-driven filmmaking, as well as one of the first movie screenplays from future director Ephron. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
The facts it can lay its hands on do not support a politically alarming or dramatically compelling conclusion to the mysteries of this case. Nor do they lead to a very uplifting statement about the motives and character of its central figure.
Silkwood is the story of an ordinary woman, hard-working and passionate, funny and screwed-up, who made those people mad simply because she told the truth as she saw it and did what she thought was right.
Hiding once again behind her accent, hairdo, and mannerisms, [Streep] fails to establish any emotional contact with the audience, a serious problem in a film that depends on audience sympathy for its impact.
One of Nichols' best films, Silkwood is effective as factual reportage and portrait of working class life (rare sight in Hollywood cinema), with terrific performances by Meryl Streep, as a new type of American heroine, and Cher, as her lesbian roommate
Silkwood's 'ordinariness' protects her from being labelled a wild-eyed Trot, but that should not be allowed to obscure her courage or the whitewash ladled onto her story after her death.
Based on the real-life story of Karen Silkwood, this blistering exposé of big business from director Mike Nichols features a brilliant performance by Meryl Streep.
All I knew about it was its tagline (besides its IMDb Rating) before going for it.Tagline: On November 13, 1974, Karen Silkwood, an employee of a nuclear facility, left to meet with a reporter from the New York Times. She never got there. I misinterpreted "She never got there." as "She went missing." What I thought
would be the beginning of the movie was the end of the movie!!! And it was quite a job to sit all through to the end. The wikipedia page on Karen Silkwood was rather more interesting (especially the last para under 'Estate of Karen Silkwood v. Kerr-McGee' section. Talk about conspiracy theories!!!) than the movie (something that I also felt about 'The Elephant Man', but 'The Elephant Man' was still better than this... way better). No, I wasn't looking for big time action with blasts & explosions (mind you that 'North Country', one of my favorites, didn't have much action either) that I ended up being disappointed. But I wasn't looking for such a slow & dull story-telling either.The performances by almost everyone, specifically Meryl Streep & Kurt Russell, were great but not enough to save me from the ample amount of boredom that the movie tends to generate.
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