Dark Waters (2019)

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Dark Waters (2019) – T. Haynes

I don’t know whether this belongs to the “conspiracy thriller” genre (popular in the 70s) or a new genre that involves people fighting the system for justice (social or environmental; Erin Brockovich, 2000; The Report, 2019; more).  In this case, Mark Ruffalo is Rob Bilott, a lawyer for a big firm that usually works to defend corporations (particularly chemical companies) against lawsuits.  But when he is contacted by a farmer from West Virginia with sick cows as a result of a nearby landfill owned by Dupont, he decides to challenge the big chemical company. Director Todd Haynes (who also made Safe, 1995, another film about environmental contamination) knows all the right moves for this genre:  Bilott finds some clues suggesting malfeasance, then experiences setbacks when the company and his own firm (led by Tim Robbins) bristle, then has what appears to be a win but sees that win dissipate as the evil corporation uses its power over the government to get its way.  Haynes and Ruffalo easily conjure up the expected emotional reactions to the highs and lows in the story.  But remarkably, the effect is more powerful because Bilott is a real person and he really did sue Dupont and uncover the horror that was their willingness to sacrifice public health for profit (experimentation on people while testing whether Teflon was safe or not; dumping chemicals in the rivers of West Virginia).  Dupont’s stock price took another hit when this film was released – if what is presented here is true, they deserve it.  But the truly depressing part of the story is the moral: we can’t trust business and we can’t trust the government to look after people’s health and welfare.  This deserved lack of trust may have now opened the door to conspiracy theorists who run amok with crazy and dangerous pronouncements on the internet (about vaccinations, for example) that seem believable because, yeah, we’ve been betrayed before.  To conclude: the system has let us down and we need to rebuild community to fix it.