Customer Reviews

Silkwood (Widescreen)

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A wonderful addition to my collection. Very pleased with the acting and the story. Sad that it actually happened. Meryl streep was amazing. Cher & Kurt Russell fabulous.

Silkwood was fantastic. Streep's performance of Karen Silkwood accompanied by Russell was supurb. This film was thought provoking whilst tear jerking in its realism of capitalism over-riding human natures passion for a better world.
And how can you forget the films rendition of "Amazing Grace".

Meyrl Streep's performance as Karen Silkwood was excellent. She is just a worker at a neucular power plant who is exposed to plutonium and goes to the press to report unsafe working conditions. Cher and Kurt Russell play Silkwood's room-mate and boyfriend who also work at the plant and are exposed to the radiation and plutonium leak. They are told that they will develop cancer and other life-long heath problems. I couldn't imagine working in a neucular power plant. The extreme dangers on top of the risk of being contaminated would be too scary! Plus, if you were contaminated they sprayed you down with scalding hot water and vigerously scrubbed you until your skin was beet red! All against your own will! You were forced. Nope, I couldn't imagine it.

This movie blew me away when I saw it the theater when it first came out...Cher is amazing, and you never think, while you watch the movie, that this IS Cher. Kurt Russell and of course, Meryl Streep, are fantastic, very high caliber performances. The setting, the plant and the other workers, all lend an air of depression and danger, the plant is a place no one in their right mind would ever want to work, no matter how high the salary. As Drew (Russell) explains to Karen (Streep) those aren't Post Toasties you're workin' with..." underlining the extreme danger of working with these substances. When they go to see Karen's children, living with their father and his new wife, it is SO depressing I could hardly watch; I cannot imagine living in such a place and under such conditions...I once went to a place in California called the City of Industry, and it reminded me of that. A real nightmare of industry, right in your front, back and side yards. The workers try hard to have an air of normality, but really, under such hazardous conditions, it is not possible. The gradual, increasing deliberate contamination of Silkwood is so vile, so insidious and so tragic, it is horrifying...better to shoot someone to death, than that prolonged agony and horror she must have endured before they finally succeeded in killing her. Streep's singing, a capella, of "Amazing Grace" over the end credits is heartbreaking, and she does a great job with it...it is an evocative song to begin with; under these circumstances it is dreadfully sad to hear. It is a true nightmare journey into a world where people earn a living exposing themselves to contamination every day, and those who work in nuclear plants, I take my hat off to you...you are truly brave souls. Excellent story, partly because it is true and partly due to the excellent acting, and a real emotional experience and window into another world...

Based on the true story of Karen Silkwood, a worker at Kerr-McGee's Cimarron nuclear plant who was contaminated with plutonium on several occasions and later died under suspicious circumstances, "Silkwood" was panned by some critics who questioned its accuracy. The film clearly implies that Silkwood was murdered because she was about to expose safety violations at her plant; en route to her late-night meeting with a New York Times reporter, she was run off of the road.

While the movie does deviate from the facts in some instances, it is largely faithful to the important details of the Silkwood case. Richard Rashke's "Who Killed Karen Silkwood" (1981, 2000) - written after Silkwood's parents pursued (and won) a civil case against K-M and based on court documents - presents ample evidence that Silkwood was indeed deliberately contaminated with plutonium and was murdered just days later. In fact, the film doesn't even address the most serious accusations - that Silkwood was part of a larger conspiracy that involved a number of state and federal agencies, that she was spied on by both K-M and the FBI, and that she may have stumbled across an international plutonium smuggling ring.

As a documentary, "Silkwood" does an acceptable job of outlining Silkwood's murder and the events leading up to it. Some of the dramatizations are disappointing but understandable. The lesbian storyline involving Silkwood's roommate Dolly (played by a refreshingly unglamorous Cher) struck me as silly and extraneous, particularly since, in real life, Silkwood's roommate was merely an acquaintance (not a good friend), and Silkwood was the one suspected of being a lesbian.

Nonetheless, as a drama, "Silkwood" certainly deserved its five Academy Award nominations. The actors all give convincing performances, especially Meryl Streep as Silkwood and Kurt Russell as Silkwood's on-again, off-again boyfriend, Drew Stephens. The movie is a chilling piece of work that will haunt you long after it's over. Especially creepy are the decontamination scenes. Yet, for those who decide to delve deeper into the Silkwood saga, the story only gets scarier...

wasted on a long movie. A waste of excellent talent.

"Silkwood" is based on the final days of Karen Silkwood's life. She stumbles upon documents proving that plutonium is more dangerous than safety inspectors claim. Therefore, many are exposed to high levels, dramatically increasing their risk of cancer. Many blame Karen for the exposure of a coworker. Her life takes many trials on and off the job. Her family life is in jeopardy due to multiple double shifts, and her love life turns rocky due to roommate issues.

"Silkwood" deserving garnered five Oscar nominations. Though it won nothing, it offers the emotional and physical realisms of dangerous working conditions, namely a nuclear plant. Many scenes catch the audience's heart while others scare them. The screenplay writer proves that he thoroughly researched everything. The producer and the director lead the cast and crew to express every drop of heart and soul though this project.

Meryl Streep received a Best Actress Oscar nomination for the role of Karen Silkwook. As always, she proves that she is the greatest living actress. She forces deep, personal emotions to scream to the audience. One could easily mistake her for one that experienced these real life events. She's flawless.

Cher won a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination for her supporting role as Silkwood's coworker and roommate. Like Streep, she recearched her character's typical lifestyle as a plant employee and as a lesbian. Though Kurt Russell role didn't demand as much research, he performed his role wonderfully.

This is one of the scariest dramas made. Its heavy impact scenes will never be forgotten by the audience. Those who love "Silkwood", which surely most will, should also watch "Erin Brockovich". Though not plutonium based, it offers the realisms of the law actions.

Warning: those sensitive to such issues should not watch "Silkwood" at night. Though not a horror movie, it still may give people nightmares.

Long before I ever saw this film, I used to scratch my head at what I thought was the strange casting. A film centered on a spunky blue collar heroine that winds up casting Cher in a secondary role and NOT as the title character!!! Where's the justice in that? If you look at pictures of the actual Karen Silkwood, she even looks like Cher. Or at least a heck of a lot more like Cher than Meryl Streep.

Still, Meryl eventually won me over. Heck, she always does. I don't think I've ever seen any actress inhabit her roles more than she. She sinks her proverbial teeth into the role of a sassy but reluctant whistle blower and ultimately becomes so convincing that by the time her character actually breaks down and uses a multi-syllable phrase like "moral imperative," you have to marvel at how much her union work and whistle blowing activities have increased her vocabulary. She's that convincing: this is Karen talking, not Yale educated Meryl.

I have a thing for socially conscious movies from the 70s and early 80s, especially ones with spunky but uneducated working class heroines, whose gradual awakening to the social injustices they previously preferred to ignore. Movies like this one NORMA RAE, as well THE CHINA SYNDROME were made in an emerging socially and politically aware climate, which is why the heroines of same must almost invariably undergo a political awakening (sometimes combined with a sexual one, although that's less the case here). The politics of SILKWOOD are garden variety liberal doctrines made pictorial. It's well worth seeing of course, for its brave subject matter and sterling performances. I would agree with those who maintain that Cher and Kurt Russell have rarely been better. And Streep is a marvel, although that can scarcely be news.

If the film has any significant flaw, it's that it often has something of a sketchy quality--which is not all that uncommon with film bio's. Below you'll find that others have argued that very point. Can any two-hour film bio actually capture its subject's essence? SILKWOOD suggests that it is possible to provide glimpses of that essence. And that may be enough.

Although the original camera work is not all glitter and glamour, it's not supposed to be! The message of this film needs to be heard by all, from our world leaders to our children who are coming of age... "Accidents" do happen, however, having knowledge of what really goes on, and the casuality of the workers at the plutonium plant will make your skin crawl... Worse yet, is that knowing certain things about certain work places can be more than hazardous to your health or your future employment... it can get you killed, and all evidence of what really happened destroyed by the employer!

A must see for everyone who cares anything about our planet, our work environment, and our lives, and our children, their children, and generations to come.

Certainly a wake-up call! Much more than simply another story! A true story that was not very dramtized, but has plenty of drama of it's own... Not for the little kiddies, however I would keep this one for them when they get older, so they know what happened in the past! Pray history doesn't repeat itself!

I saw this movie while I was doing chemistry research with nuclear waste at one of several national laboratories here in the US. I cannot tell you which one it was- I *can* say that it wasn't LANL (Los Alamos National Laboratory), although the contamination there is appalling (look it up on the web!).

It was absolutely haunting to watch "Silkwood" and then go to work the next morning. There is so much the government doesn't tell the general public about the disastrous conditions in the labs, where we worked, that literally date to the days of the Manhattan Project. If the press only knew just a *few* of these things, the shockwaves would shake the US. I saw plenty of "accidents" (more like disasters) involving spills of concentrated solutions of plutonium compounds ... and was contaminated, once, myself.

The movie just gave me chills. No, in real life, they don't scrub you down with harsh brushes if you're contaminated (plutonium and other fission products are VERY dangerous if they enter through a break in the skin, into the bloodstream), but there was definitely enough in this film to give me chills at work.

I'm still a chemist, but won't work with plutonium again. And, hopefully, this review will remain anonymous.... Through this review, and stories I've told my friends, I've done my share of "whistle-blowing", and it's not a safe thing to do.

See this movie, and you'll think twice about how you feel about the "blue collar" workers involved in the mass production of nuclear warheads in the US.