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Silkwood (1983)
Director: Mike Nichols
Cast: Meryl Streep, Kurt Russell, Cher, Craig T. Nelson
Runtime131 min
Rating15
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Like most of the people in her town, Karen Silkwood works at the local nuclear plant producing highly radioactive plutonium. Exposed one day to a lethal dose of radiation, Karen faces the blank walls of corporate indifference and denial. As her illness increases, her protest grows louder and she becomes an obvious danger to the powers that be.
Why you might like this:
Silkwood features an outstanding performance from Meryl Streep as the title character, a nuclear worker who faces corporate indifference and danger after being exposed to radiation. Director Mike Nichols brings a gritty realism to this 1983 drama, which will captivate fans of hard-hitting social issue films.
About
Silkwood is a 1983 American biographical drama film directed by Mike Nichols, and starring Meryl Streep, Kurt Russell, and Cher. The screenplay by Nora Ephron and Alice Arlen was adapted from the book Who Killed Karen Silkwood? by Rolling Stone writer and activist Howard Kohn, which detailed the life of Karen Silkwood, a nuclear whistle-blower and a labor union activist who investigated alleged wrongdoing at the Kerr-McGee plutonium plant where she worked. In real life, her death in a car crash gave rise to a 1979 lawsuit, Silkwood v. Kerr-McGee, led by attorney Gerry Spence. The jury rendered its verdict of $10 million in damages to be paid to the Silkwood estate, the largest amount in damages ever awarded for that kind of case at the time. The Silkwood estate eventually settled for $1.3 million.
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