Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
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.
Silkwood is anchored by Meryl Streep's powerhouse performance, widely considered one of her finest, with strong support from Cher and Kurt Russell. The plot is a solid procedural drama based on real events, but its structure follows a fairly conventional whistleblower-in-peril arc without major surprises. Mike Nichols' direction is assured and restrained, with competent but not visually distinctive cinematography. The film's novelty lies more in its subject matter and the weight of its true story than in any formal innovation. The ending, deliberately ambiguous and unresolved, is true to the real case but may leave audiences wanting more closure — it's tonally appropriate but not cathartic.