Le mystère Silkwood

Karen Silkwood (Meryl Streep) lives in Oklahoma with her boyfriend Drew Stephens (Kurt Russell) and best friend lesbian Dolly Pelliker (Cher). Her kids live with their father in Texas. The three friends are low-skilled workers at the Kerr-McGee Cimarron Site where they manufacture fuel rods for nuclear reactors. With mounting work and lax safety, Karen starts to talk union causing tension with the company. Eventually, she gets mysteriously irradiated.

Meryl Streep is the best. She delivers a fully-fleshed out character of real depth. The movie is a bit slow and meandering. It would be great to have a tighter and more direct film. Then there is the final text. It seems like a bunch of stuff from the legal department to safeguard against lawsuits. They may as well fictionalize the movie instead. The performances are terrific. The story is compelling.

Intense 1980s flick that is based on the true story of Karen Silkwood (Meryl Streep in an Oscar-nominated role), a woman at a plutonium plant who began to talk about what really went on at the facility where she was employed. It seems that nuclear tampering would lead to the poisoning of the plant's employees and the pollution of the environment. Silkwood was about to talk to the New York Times about the Oklahoma plant when she died under mysterious circumstances in a car accident. The audience knows what is going to happen, but it is getting there that is the fascinating part. Mike Nichols' Oscar-nominated direction is arguably the best of his career, with the exception of his work on "The Graduate". Cher (also Oscar-nominated) proved that she was a legitimate actress as Streep's lesbian co-worker. Kurt Russell also gives his finest performance as Streep's on-again-off-again boyfriend. However with all that said, it is Meryl Streep who gives one of her finest performances in this memorable, remarkable and important motion picture. 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Even though you already now how the movie ends just by reading the taglines, there is still a strong element of suspense in this film, about Karen Silkwood who suspects that the lives of hereself and her co-workers are in danger. It is a well written film, and masterfully acted by Streep and her castmates. This one makes Julia Roberts in Erin Brochievich look really bad.

I took the time to register with IMDB just to present a more accurate review of this movie than the person that wrote that the movie was a joke. While not one of the best movies of its type, it's still pretty well done. The story moves along well....clues are dropped throughout the movie to show the possible conspiracy at work. I would consider "The Insider" as one of the better movies of this type that was made in recent years, and even that movie shows traces of having evolved from movies like Silkwood.

I find most movies of this type that were done in the 80s as generally pretty cheesy. Silkwood does a pretty good job of "not being too cheesy". And if there is any trace of "cheesiness" (if you will), it's represented in the way that the townspeople react to Karen Silkwood. And the reactions worked for me, because when I think of how seriously people reacted to issues like nuclear or toxic contamination back in the late 70s/early 80s, there was a lot less info available. Nowadays in the "Oprah" and "11 o'clock news warnings" generation, where there's something new that we should be cautious of everyday, these types of stories are much more believable.

Meryl Streep (as expected) far outshines the rest of the cast. Kurt Russell turns out a pretty nice performance. Cher's performance was ok. I think at the time she probably received a lot more recognition for this role because it began to show her range. But she's been better in subsequent roles.

All in all, Silkwood is a movie that doesn't suprise or open the eyes of all the conspiracy- conscious people that are alive in 2003, but it does provide a touching story about a town that was dealing with the prospect of having to choose between the risk of toxic infection and their livelihood. But the real story here is about the one woman that cared enough to dig a little and ask a few questions and the danger that developed from taking a stand. 8 out of 10.

One of the things that many movies are missing these days are the small details and things that happen in everyday life - and how we are able to learn about characters through small visual clues rather than the large hammer of exposition-driven dialogue.

For instance, in the scene where the characters are looking at the slides of the trip to Washington: towards the end are two photos with Streep and Ron Silver's character. In the second photo, she leans into him a little bit. That tiny bit of body language makes us wonder - and Kurt Russell's character too. He suddenly moves his arm from around Streep's and suddenly she's aware that something's wrong. It's all in the unspoken. There isn't a preceding scene where she picks up the other guy, or goes to bed with him or even lies to Kurt Russell. It just cuts to this scene, and we the viewer learn along with Kurt that she's been unfaithful - which also reveals a little more about this person Karen Silkwood.

She's not a perfect hero - she's flighty, irresponsible, impulsive and non-committal - so the question becomes, why did she change? Why did she risk her life when she finally truly understood the risks? And how does Kurt Russell come to terms with this changed person he is in love with, given that he is just a guy who knows how to fix a car not save the world?

Watch Mike Nichols' inspired direction; he rarely cuts away in the middle of a scene. A lot of Kurt, Cher and Meryl's acting happens all in one take. *That's* truly good acting and directing.

Good dialogue in a film is in knowing what's happening without it being said. Don't fast forward the first hour - really pay attention and see how much you learn from the small details that will enrich your viewing of this film.