Decided to check out the movie Dark Waters the other day. With a title like that, you’d think there’s be a Japanese ghost lurking about but no. Instead, we have an environmental horror story starring heroic lawyers working to protect West Virginian towns and, by extension, the health of all humanity. We may also be working with a very pointed agenda… whether that’s for good or ill is largely up to the viewer.
So Dark Waters is about the legal battle with DuPont over the health risks posed by the manufacturing (and distribution) of Teflon, the coating that makes our pans non-stick and protects our carpets from stains. A farmer requests the assistance of a big time corporate lawyer because something is killing his cattle and it’s probably DuPont chemicals in the ground water. The lawyer, played by Mark Ruffalo, goes on a crusade to confirm this theory, goes to war with DuPont, and eventually proves that Teflon is killing us all… or something to that effect.
This is a very ponderous, very serious-minded movie that tends to get a lot of the drama right. But it also tends to go into random spats of misplaced melodrama. WATCH as mysterious unmarked helicopters buzz the poor farmers. GASP as they suggest DuPont goons attempt to burn down someone’s home. WORRY with Ruffalo’s character when he thinks DuPont has rigged his car to explode!! Yeah… a lot of this is extra paranoia on a movie that’s already got plenty of realistic paranoia built in… and since these sequences have no grounds even within the movie itself, it’s kind of ridiculous. I mean, there’s no corporate goons threatening anyone, following anyone, etc.
Now… there’s a bit of obvious real-world axe-grinding going on in this film and that makes me suspicious of the facts it presents. It’s obvious the film makers are on the side of the little guy and have decided DuPont and Teflon are Evil with a capital E. And I’m not here to say they aren’t doing wrong. But I bet there’s another side to the story… and not just DuPonts. So the fact I can’t trust the facts gets in my head while watching it and that takes me out of the film.
Now, for the purposes of just treating a movie as a movie, I will also state that, when they cool the melodrama, the movie isn’t bad and creates a suitable suspenseful mood and might get you to rally against the fat cats. But the movie also just goes on for a good half hour longer than it needs to. And I get why… at one point they get into a waiting game to see what the science says about the health of the towns’ population. And they wait, and wait, and wait… and the movie goes into redundant scene after scene of nothing much happening. The movie goes into a nosedive of audience impatience. It kind of kills whatever narrative propulsion the film had. And maybe that’s the point since they wait for many years for the results of testing.
So, yeah, this is a reasonably good drama sabotaged on all sides by its own script, its own blatant one-sided agenda, and its own desire to depict “waiting”. The acting is good and the movie looks great and generates a suitable sense of dread and worry. But there’s just enough taking me out of the movie between the propaganda and goofy melodrama… much less the endless ending.
Score: 74