216 - Dark Waters

A legal drama about the biggest corruption scandal you've never heard of, Dark Waters tells the story of lawyer Robert Bilott's twenty year long fight to expose chemical manufacturer DuPont's decades of knowing and unapologetic poisoning of a town, a country, and the entire world. Visited by a West Virginian farmer named Wilbur Tennant, whose livestock are falling prey to unusual medical conditions and dying, Bilott - a corporate lawyer who works to help DuPont pollute within the law - files a lawsuit, and slowly begins to uncover the company's secrets. For José, it's a film that fits neatly amongst director Todd Haynes' previous work, which often focuses on power relations and the struggles of the oppressed, sidelined or disenfranchised. For Mike, it might be a new Spotlight, another film about the exposure of vast, historical, institutional wrongdoing. But don't believe the trailer that makes it look all blood and thunder - Dark Waters, though compelling and dramatic, is a slow burner, methodical and careful, and with a scope that looks beyond the details of the law. The town of Parkersburg, WV is shown in portrait, with shots evocative of Depression-era photography, and Bilott is an interesting character, a man who appears uncomfortable within his own body, whose determination to uncover the truth grows alongside his paranoia that something bad will happen to him, and whose relationship with his wife is a constant that is reframed intriguingly in the film's final movement. Dark Waters is a fascinating, intelligent, complex thriller that gives its themes room to express themselves and is full of details and moments that speak to entire inner lives and ways of thinking. Make sure you see it. (Mike would also like to apologise to Bucky Bailey, one of DuPont's most unfortunate victims and perhaps the film's central emotional tentpole, for referring to him as Bucky Barnes, who is the guy from the Avengers films who sports a prosthetic arm and does nothing interesting.) Recorded on 28th February 2020.