A social drama by American independent film classic Todd Haynes, based on lawyer Robert Bilott’s sensational investigation, which uncovered the heinous crimes of one of America's largest chemical corporations.
Lawyer Robert Bilott is approached by an acquaintance of his grandmother, on whose farm animals have been dying for unknown reasons for several years: they have huge tumors, their teeth turn black. The farmer links the death of animals to the nearby DuPont chemical plant. Interested in the situation, Robert launches an investigation that will soon turn into a study of the stories of thousands of people whose health suffered as a result of the corporation.
Todd Haynes (Carol, Far from Heaven) turns to the social drama genre, using the sensational New York Times Magazine article “The Lawyer Who Became DuPont's Worst Nightmare.” Contrary to its title, Haynes portrays the struggle for truth and justice as a single individual’s difficult, routine, and inglorious confrontation with a giant corporate machine on the one hand and the clumsy judicial system on the other.
Haynes' melancholic, detached style of narration is congenial to the painstaking and pathos-free process of conducting a legal investigation, which consists of the monotonous study of huge amounts of papers and evidence. But it is this angle, which differs from the usual Hollywood glorification of “investigative matters,” that shows what colossal, unbearable work social change requires and at what cost an unpalatable truth is revealed.
The film will be screened in English with Russian subtitles.
Dark Waters
Dir. Todd Haynes
USA, 2019. 126 min. 16+