Silkwood (1980)

The main characters in Silkwood are all very blue collar. We know this because they have deep southern drawls (though Cher’s comes and goes), and smoke endlessly. Everyplace.

Meryl Streep (too many films to name) plays Karen Silkwood. She works at a Oklahoma factory that refines, processes and produces radioactive material. The place his similar safety protocols to the concession stand at a little-league game. Yokels working with radioactive materials reminiscent of Homer Simpson. Security procedures seem nearly non-existent.

Her beau Drew is played by Kurt Russell (1982’s the Thing, Death Proof) . A bit of a reactionary hothead, he wants to do his job, work some overtime, and drink beer.

Cher (Mask, Suspect, Moonstruck) is their roommate Dolly, who happens to be gay. It feels like a brave choice for the filmmakers to have an overtly gay character in a mainstream film, nearly 30 years ago. Less progressive is the fact that, upon learning Dolly’s gay, Karen and Drew are taken aback.

The three take a road trip. The long drive allows for a little backstory. They’re off to see Karen’s kids, who live with her ex-husband in Texas.

Some months before the workers at the plant went on strike. In the aftermath, there’s a movement towards union decertification, and diminished workers rights. Karen volunteers to help organize the workers, and immediately jumps into it headfirst. Which, of course, pisses off good ‘ole boy Drew. If it were up to him, Karen would cool it with the union rabble rousing. When he inevitably moves out in protest, he packs his 8-track tapes, two cartons of smokes, and his American flag.

Ron Silver (Reversal of Fortune, Ali) plays a Washington D.C. union rep. They want to highlight health and safety issues to keep membership up. He’s got the not-so-subtle long hair, beard-and-mustache and northeast nasal accent of a stereotypical liberal trouble-maker.

One day a co-worker is contaminated, “cooked” as they call it. She’s taken to a shower and scrubbed down by company doctors. They claim she’s received a negligible dose, and diagnose her safe and healthy. But Karen’s skeptical. She’s convinced the higher-ups aren’t telling the truth about acceptable safety levels.

Then, shortly after cleaning up her work station alone, Karen’s scan sets off radiation alarms, too. She, too, has been irradiated, and goes through the same unpleasant clean-up procedure. But how did she become contaminated?

Craig T. Nelson (TVs Coach, Poltergeist, the Incredibles) plays the lecherous Winston. His biggest character trait is a gold chain with a lightning bolt pendent. He’s supposed to examine X-rays of fuel rods, checking for defects in welds. What he really does is touch up the images, to make them appear safe.

So the set-up is that Karen is agitating on behalf of the union, and is being poisoned by plant management for her efforts. Silkwood paints a clear divide between the workers and management. Workers=good, common folk. Management are all stern-faced and duplicitous. Which, while that view may have my sympathy, is more than a little heavy-handed. The worker/management antagonism recalls such films as Erin Brockovich and Norma Rae.

It’s hard to believe these workers wouldn't know more than they do about the dangers of radiation. They treat their workplace with no exceptional respect. Odd, given that they’re handling plutonium!

Music in the movie is sparse, but used conspicuously to punctuate supposedly poignant moments. It’s used to accentuate a fight between Karen and Dolly, and then again after Karen makes a particularly significant statement.

Streep is predictably terrific. Her characterization of an earnest-yet-reckless small-town girl feels right. It takes real talent to watch her as this country girl and not think the entire time “hey! That’s Meryl Streep.” But somehow she accomplishes it.

Cher was nominated for supporting actress, but has very few lines, and not much screen time. She was fine, but nothing special.

Minor roles are populated by familiar faces, and actors who went on to become stars: David Strathairn (Eight Men Out, City of Hope, Passion Fish, the Firm, L.A. Confidential, Good Night and Good Luck), Fred Ward (Tremors, Short Cuts, the Player, Henry and June), Bruce McGill (look him up), Anthony Heald (Dr. Chilton from the Silence of the Lambs), and many others you’ll recognize.

Silkwood’s art director (Richard D. James) gets props for the “Hang In There, Baby, Friday’s Comin’!” poster on the bathroom wall, and wine-bottle candle holder (with wax melted all down its sides) on the coffee table. Pure 80s.

The film was released during the height of the Cold War, and in the wakes of Three Mile Island and Love Canal accidents (as well as just before Chernobyl). It’s no surprise the nation was jumpy, and ripe for conspiracy-driven disaster films.

Silkwood is entertaining, and (save for a couple romantic scenes between Streep and Russsell) mostly well-paced, if a little light on subtlety. It looks grainy and washed out, the way the 70s exist in memory. Director Mike Nichols has done better (the Graduate, Closer, Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Primary Colors) and worse (Wolf, the Birdcage, What Planet are you From?). It has the distinction of being Nora Ephron’s (When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle) first cinema credit. The facts about Karen Silkwood’s life are more interesting than this film. Silkwood is an interesting first foray into her story.