Director: Mike Nichols
Starring: Meryl Streep, Kurt Russell, Cher, Craig T. Nelson, Fred Ward, Diana Scarwid
Running Time: 131 minutes
Synopsis: It's the 1970s in Oklahoma, and Karen Silkwood (Meryl Streep) is a technician at a manufacturing plant for plutonium rods. Her co-workers include her partner Drew (Kurt Russell) and best friend and housemate Dolly (Cher). Training and safety standards at the plant are lax, and employees are frequently exposed to radiation, although most of them are just happy to have a job. A union decertification effort and several contamination scares prompt Karen to become active in trying to improve safety, placing her in conflict with both management and co-workers.
What Works Well: Based on actual events, this is an in-depth look at blue collar life, with Meryl Streep excelling in the conflicted, lived-in role of a would-be whistleblower. Far from glamourizing Karen Silkwood, director Mike Nichols and writers Nora Ephron and Alice Arlen create a warts-and-all portrait of a working class woman engaged in the daily grind of a thankless job, bruised by a divorce and separation from her kids, and enjoying a relationship with Drew and the ups and downs of a friendship with Dolly. Once she starts to care about safety at work, her already ramshackle home life starts to disintegrate, testing all her commitments.
What Does Not Work As Well: The balance tilts heavily towards domestic issues, reducing Karen's search for answers at the plant to a few scenes of note-taking and cabinet searching. The perspectives of co-workers are short-changed into traditional cold shouldering, while management (heartless) and union (self-serving) leaders are painted with singular colours.
Key Quote:
Drew: Sweetheart, it's like you're two people. I'm in love with one of them. But the other one is just...
Karen: ...a real pain in the ass.
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