DARK  WATERS
Directed by: Todd Haynes
Running time: 2 hours 6 minutes
Release date: November 22, 2019
Genre: Drama, History, and Biopic
Distributor: Focus Features
MPAA Rating: PG-13

In a historical "David vs. Goliath" drama, shown in a not so larger than life situation, the truth of how environmental contamination has caused horrific results in the United States of America for several decades.  This film also shows how one man's pursuit for truth brings down the corporate world.

A corporate defense attorney turned public advocate Robert Bilott (Mark Ruffalo), takes on an environmental lawsuit against a chemical company that exposes a lengthy history of waste dumping and pollution.

Dark Waters gives light to Robert Billot, an American attorney who has spent more than twenty years litigating hazardous dumping of chemicals Perflourooctanoic acid (PFOA) and Perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS).  Mark Ruffalo gives a very good personal background of Billot, an offspring of an U.S. Air Force veteran, whose childhood was lived on several military installations.  Whose aggressive insight in life and law garnered him a law degree in 1990.

When a case was brought to him, as a partner with Taft Stettinius & Hollister, he undertook an investigation dating back to 1947 when 3M (then Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company) began producing PFOA.  This then known as Teflon, was then in 1951 purchased by DuPont and label the chemical as C8.  A study of workers living near a DuPont Teflon plant found an association between PFOA exposure and two kinds of cancer as well as four other diseases.  This included 110,000 files consisting of confidential studies and reports conducted by DuPont scientists over decades.  By 1993, DuPont understood that PFOA caused cancer in lab animals.  However, this was an integral part of DuPont's earning and they refused to cancel the manufacturing.  Billot had learned that both 3M and DuPont had been conducting secret medical studies for more than four decades.

In a classic legal drama setting, a class-action lawsuit atmosphere is depicted on screen.  The film uses steady pacing and rhythm as it examines the case and life of  an important personage from the past to the present era.  With the excellent supporting cast of Anne Hathaway as wife Sarah Billot, William Jackson Harper and Bill Camp as victims James Ross and Wilbur Tennant, Tim Robbins, Bill Pullman, and Mare Winningham the production's performances are highly effective and powerfully displayed. 

FILM RATING (B+)
Gerald Wright