Uncomplicated Power

SILKWOOD is a devastatingly lyrical film about the mysterious death of anti-nuclear activist Karen Silkwood on November 13, 1974. The film carefully weaves together Silkwood's sheltered life as a technician at a nuclear power plant, her relationships with her boyfriend, lesbian roommate, and fellow workers, and her burgeoning disgruntlement with the safety conditions of the pleat.

Based on the obscure, reconstructed facts of her life, the movie documents Silkwood's story vividly, drawing in its wake a stunning depletion of the squalid life in her southern Oklahoma town, and graphic details of routine abuses at a nuclear power plant. It successfully avoids over-romanticizing Silkwood's role as a pseudo-reactionary, instead presenting the material without a slant while filling the plot with amazing detail and brittle, yet good natured humor.

Meryl Streep effortlessy recreates Karen Silkwood as the simple, not-too-intelligent woman she most likely was: a woman who naively begins to fight corruption without ever grasping the magnitude of her struggle. Like her stunning Academy Award winning performance in Sophie's Choice, Streep delves wholeheartedly into her role, displaying nuances and foibles that make Silkwood believable. We feel her physical revulsion when she gets brutally showered and scrubbed after receiving radiation contamination; we see her go through the motions of a rather doldrum life, confront her roommate's homosexuality, and unconsciously adapt to the volatile world of union politics when she decides to actively fight her company's wrongdoings.

STREE'S Silkwood fits right into the dry, voidless landscape of her cheaply furnished house. Her red hair, compulsive cigarette smoking and good-natured rambunctiousness are charming, and we gradually accept her character for what she is, not what she could be if she ignored the corruption and raised her three children from a common-law marriage who live with their father. Streep plays well off the other characters, featuring her rugged live-in boyfriend Drew (Kurt Russell) and her bizarre, sexually frustrated roommate Dolly (Cher). Both Russell and Cher turn in excellent performances, overcoming past stereotypes--Russell as the adventurous hero of Walt Disney stories, and Cher on the careening rock star. All the cast seems grounded in the setting, and their action are believable, while apt overly dramatic.

Silkwood draws its power from its low-hayed approach to the story, the cast and crow rents the temptation to fabricate ridiculously tragic scenes of blatant corruption, Silkwood is no Chinn Syndrome, where Jane Fonda played an aggressive reporter investigating a neat melt-down at a nuclear reactor. Rather this film goes behind the scenes of life at a nuclear plant and subtly probes the intricacies concerning the operation and life of its employees. This film has no glamour, nor does it gloss over related event; the scene in which Silkwood's home is decontaminated for radiation poisoning is horrifying, and we really believe Silkwood's utter helplessness and revulsion at the destruction.

THE MOVIE delicately handles Silkwood's sudden death at age 28, leaving her end appropriately dubious, since no one knows if she was murdered or had a fatal accident. Such judicious writing pervades the entire film, which moves along slowly, giving ample time to make the audience think about the implications of nuclear production.

Streep's haunting singing of "Amazing Grace" at the end can captivate the viewer, as her clear and resounding voice reinforces her naive struggle against the establishment. Silkwood is not an enjoyable movie but is instead painful, especially during the scenes preceding Kevin's death. But on the other hand it plunges into the lives of Karen Silkwood and her friends without sensationalizing the struggle against bigger and more powerful foes. The poignant acting and cinematography make the film flow gently towards its graveyard end, while it is the actual story of Silkwood's life that leaves the deepest impression.