Must See Movie...

Highly Overrated But Still Good

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

I might as well start off by stating that I litter and don't recycle and use pesticides and do everything I can to cause pollution, I like pollution. But I've always loved this movie, not from an environmental aspect but because it shows the life of average, working class people and instead of trying to make it glamorous, it keeps it true. I love the acting, and I'm not a big fan of the bluegrass but the solo of Meryl Streep singing Amazing Grace was stunning at the end as it showed Karen's death scene.Karen Silkwood is a metallurgy worker, refining plutonium in a large chemical factory in Oklahoma with her friends (many of her friends are employed by the factory). The only one she doesn't get along with is Winston, the known creep who is always trying to get it on with the female workers. She shares a small house with her boyfriend Drew and a lesbian woman named Dolly, both of whom are her best friends; they even go with her when she drives out to the oil fields of Texas to see her estranged kids.One day Karen begins to pull together her memories of disturbing sightings at the plant, such as a radioactive truck being cut up with welding tools to be buried, and her friend Velma being hosed and scrubbed down naked after being contaminated. Karen soon finds herself involved in some serious activism and dangerous work, and just as she is about to blow the whistle she is killed. No one knows if it was an accident or a murder.Silkwood was based on a true story, a cold case that happened in 1983, forcing the shut-down of the sketchy factory. The movie accurately depicts the events and inspired several scenes in the Sysco book series as well as an episode of Cold Case titled Breaking News.

Meryl Streep, the master of dialects and drawls, is at it again in this biography of metallurgy worker Karen Silkwood, who may have very well been done away with to prevent her from bringing out the truth of exposure of workers in a certain Texas plutonium plant's exposure to the deadly chemical.Streep starts off as a good-time southern girl with several illegitimate children from one man who she has left and taken up with Kurt Russell. Cher, is a long for the ride, as the woman she lives with, a lesbian whose makeup in the film seems to reveal much exposure to the chemical. Kudos to the make-up artist for Cher in the film.Silkwood becomes another Norma Rae, fighting for the dignity of workers and keeping the union going within the factory.This tragic story reveals the nature of the dangers of exposure to chemical compounds and what industry will do to keep the workers quiet.

Warning! Spoilers ahead!This film is but one of a series made in the early 1980s that dealt with issues of social change and individuals dealing with overwhelming odds against powerful oppressors. Among earlier epics like "Reds" and "Gandhi", "Silkwood" is perhaps the most relatable to the average individual, and thus perhaps the most poignant. Unlike the protagonist of "Reds," Karen Silkwood is not an upper-class do-gooder out to change the whole world from the outset; she is an ordinary laborer in a nuclear materials plant who becomes a social crusader due to the hazards of her workplace on both herself and her coworkers. Also, unlike "Gandhi," "Silkwood" is subdued and limited in scope, the setting being limited to rural Oklahoma and the nuclear materials plant; the characters are not nation-builders or viceroys, but workers, union leaders, managers and reporters. Mike Nichols's film about Karen Silkwood, while being comparatively humble, is no less heartbreaking and gripping.Meryl Streep is excellent as the eponymous protagonist. Unlike John Reed in "Reds", Karen Silkwood is of the same class and temperament as the people she is trying to save. She playfully steals coworkers' food in the cafeteria, laughs at their crude jokes, and chides her roommates--also employees at the company--for keeping spoiled food in the refrigerator. Because Silkwood is close to the people she works and lives with, she is particularly distraught when she learns about the plant's contamination and watches as a coworker is given a brutal bath to rid her of irradiation. She understands them as John Reed never could. Some critics have characterized the character of Silkwood as equally obnoxious and irrational as she is noble. Silkwood is a back-slapping blue-collar woman like everyone else in her life, but Streep is able to make these traits endearing rather than annoying. It is Silkwood's personality which makes her hated by coworkers and company later in the film, even though members of the audience get the sense that *anyone else in the plant* could have ended up like Silkwood if they had chosen her path. The audience feels, for the most part, sympathy with the tribulations of Silkwood rather than distance, and this is to Streep's credit. It seems fair to fault the movie for getting sidetracked in the first hour or so with stories about Silkwood's relationship with her boyfriend and roommates, as well as her painful relationship with her divorced common-law husband and her children. While, on the surface, having little to do with the main plot about Silkwood's fight against nuclear plant corruption, these vignettes are nevertheless important in building and developing Silkwood's character, such that she is fully three-dimensional and sympathetic when the main plot starts rolling. Unfortunately, these early scenes may be distracting to the first-time viewer, so much so that they may lose sight of what the movie is about, and might turn off the TV (or monitor) in frustration because the first third is boring and doesn't seem to go anywhere plot-wise. A fair warning: "Silkwood" is as much about the emotional interactions between three roommates in a small house as it is about workplace safety; these plot points *do* eventually join together, but it requires patience on the part of the audience.While Meryl Streep portrays Silkwood as a gutsy, fearless individual, the movie treads carefully between hagiography and castigation. The movie does not ignore the toll SIlkwood's fight against the company has on her roommates and, more significantly, her coworkers, who show understandable concern that her sleuthing will only result in the company shutting down and everyone getting laid off. While those around her change in their attitudes toward Silkwood, Silkwood, remarkably, remains a static character, as boisterous and playful near the end as she was in the beginning (a near-finale scene with her boyfriend as she departs for the last time shows this character development). "Silkwood" is a fine piece of filmmaking about a true working-class hero. Meryl Streep deserves credit for making Karen Silkwood a likable and compelling protagonist, who in lesser hands may have come off as annoying. While unsung today, "Silkwood" remains one of the best of the "social cause" movies of the 1980s. Highly recommended.

Meryl Streep stars as "Silkwood," a 1983 film directed by Mike Nichols and also starring Kurt Russell, Cher, Craig T. Nelson, Diana Scarwid, and Ron Silver.This is the true story of Karen Silkwood, a whistleblower at the plutonium processing plant at which she worked. Nearly everyone works for the plant, and when Karen volunteers to be part of the union's efforts to stay in the plant, she becomes a threat to everyone.After maintaining a union presence in the company, the union's next step is to negotiate a contract. Part of its work is investigating the safety features of the plant, which are woefully lacking. Karen herself is exposed to plutonium, and the question today is was it deliberate, as the levels were very high.Very good film, done in a very naturalistic style and showing not only the shabby way in which workers were treated, but the fact that most of them were lower class, working lots of hours under dangerous conditions. It's not a happy ending, as I guess most people know, and again, the question is, was Silkwood killed in an accident en route to meet with a New York Times reporter, or was it an arranged accident? And if she had documents, there were none at the scene.What's not shown in the film is that the plant eventually was shut down, and Silkwood's family sued and won a large settlement. This settlement was reduced, but then restored. Rather than appeal, the company paid a substantial amount of money but never admitted liability.Meryl Streep is fantastic as Silkwood, a hard worker, well-liked initially, who loved to laugh. She was courageous in the sense that she saw a wrong and wanted to do her part to right it without a lot of fanfare. Like everyone in the film, there is no artifice to Streep's portrayal. It's all done in a very natural style, and that includes the sound, which is not overamplified. Cher is wonderful as her lesbian friend Dolly, and Kurt Russell effective as her boyfriend.There were several films like this in the '80s and '90s - Norma Rae was one, and even though it's not about workers, The China Syndrome is another as it deals with dangerous conditions in a nuclear plant. Later there was A Civil Action, The Firm, Afterburn, The Insider, Erin Brokovich. Silkwood was an important movie with an important message, and it undoubtedly served as inspiration for the films that followed it.