Silkwood (1983)

 This is a great film highlighting Meryl Streep's incredible talent.

Karen Silkwood (Streep) works at a nuclear plant, with long hours and different working conditions, being on her feet all day. She lives with her boyfriend, Drew (Kurt Russell), who fixes cars in his spare time and their friend, Dolly (Cher) who harbors a crush on Karen but also may have been the reason for Karen's downfall. Karen's main concern at the beginning is getting the weekend off so she can visit her kids who live out of state, why she moved so far away from them is never explained. But when she returns, she learns that her section of the plant suffered a contamination which starts her slow decent into realizing how dangerous her job is and she quickly becomes more involved with the union, within just weeks becoming a spokeswoman for them, which leads to complications in her personal life. 

Changes are thrown her way after she's transferred to another branch, working with the creepy Winston (Craig T. Nelson) who doctors pictures of the insufficient rods which is incredibly dangerous. This is what fascinates the fancy union men the most, as they gloss over the fact that are only two shower stalls for 75 people per shift, which is also wretched. However, Karen's life is derailed after she tests positive for internal radiation and they strip her house bare. She understands that her life will slowly decline and it probably would have, except for the fact that she dies in a tragic car wreck which may or may not have been purposeful, as the plant was furious with her actions. But she was just trying to save lives so she died a hero. 

The film is a bit oddly paced and slow at times, though the performances are all natural and great with Oscar nominations earned by Streep and Cher. And the screenplay has clever ways of explaining Karen's job at the plant. It's just a shame that the big guy won, but unfortunately, the big guy almost always wins. Grade: A-

Side Notes:

-The Confederate flag that Drew owns is a bit problematic nowadays. 

-However, they don't care that Dolly starts to date Angela (Diana Scarwid). Angela works at a funeral home and eventually goes back to her husband, talk about awkward. 

-Be on the look out for cameos from Bruce McGill, David Straithairn and Tess Harper.