Very disappointed :(

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Apparently based on "real-life" events that took place back in 1974 - I'd say that Silkwood's joyless, little story about these disastrous events could've easily been told in about 90 minutes, instead of being totally dragged out for 130 minutes.This potentially promising tale about a nuclear whistle-blower got itself so bogged down with frivolous soap opera that, before long, the intended dead-seriousness of Karen Silkwood's escalating dilemma became annoyingly trivialized to the max.I mean - In no time flat - Karen's dire predicament was given such a back-seat to all of her chronic chain-smoking and petty personal dramas that I got to the point where I lost complete interest in this film's story and I ceased to care, one way or the other, about what inevitably happened to this woman.Anyway - With that all said - I can't believe that both Streep and, especially Cher (as Dolly the lesbian loafer) were actually nominated for Oscars for their lack-lustre performances here in Silkwood.

I might as well start off by stating that I litter and don't recycle and use pesticides and do everything I can to cause pollution, I like pollution. But I've always loved this movie, not from an environmental aspect but because it shows the life of average, working class people and instead of trying to make it glamorous, it keeps it true. I love the acting, and I'm not a big fan of the bluegrass but the solo of Meryl Streep singing Amazing Grace was stunning at the end as it showed Karen's death scene.Karen Silkwood is a metallurgy worker, refining plutonium in a large chemical factory in Oklahoma with her friends (many of her friends are employed by the factory). The only one she doesn't get along with is Winston, the known creep who is always trying to get it on with the female workers. She shares a small house with her boyfriend Drew and a lesbian woman named Dolly, both of whom are her best friends; they even go with her when she drives out to the oil fields of Texas to see her estranged kids.One day Karen begins to pull together her memories of disturbing sightings at the plant, such as a radioactive truck being cut up with welding tools to be buried, and her friend Velma being hosed and scrubbed down naked after being contaminated. Karen soon finds herself involved in some serious activism and dangerous work, and just as she is about to blow the whistle she is killed. No one knows if it was an accident or a murder.Silkwood was based on a true story, a cold case that happened in 1983, forcing the shut-down of the sketchy factory. The movie accurately depicts the events and inspired several scenes in the Sysco book series as well as an episode of Cold Case titled Breaking News.

Meryl Streep stars as "Silkwood," a 1983 film directed by Mike Nichols and also starring Kurt Russell, Cher, Craig T. Nelson, Diana Scarwid, and Ron Silver.This is the true story of Karen Silkwood, a whistleblower at the plutonium processing plant at which she worked. Nearly everyone works for the plant, and when Karen volunteers to be part of the union's efforts to stay in the plant, she becomes a threat to everyone.After maintaining a union presence in the company, the union's next step is to negotiate a contract. Part of its work is investigating the safety features of the plant, which are woefully lacking. Karen herself is exposed to plutonium, and the question today is was it deliberate, as the levels were very high.Very good film, done in a very naturalistic style and showing not only the shabby way in which workers were treated, but the fact that most of them were lower class, working lots of hours under dangerous conditions. It's not a happy ending, as I guess most people know, and again, the question is, was Silkwood killed in an accident en route to meet with a New York Times reporter, or was it an arranged accident? And if she had documents, there were none at the scene.What's not shown in the film is that the plant eventually was shut down, and Silkwood's family sued and won a large settlement. This settlement was reduced, but then restored. Rather than appeal, the company paid a substantial amount of money but never admitted liability.Meryl Streep is fantastic as Silkwood, a hard worker, well-liked initially, who loved to laugh. She was courageous in the sense that she saw a wrong and wanted to do her part to right it without a lot of fanfare. Like everyone in the film, there is no artifice to Streep's portrayal. It's all done in a very natural style, and that includes the sound, which is not overamplified. Cher is wonderful as her lesbian friend Dolly, and Kurt Russell effective as her boyfriend.There were several films like this in the '80s and '90s - Norma Rae was one, and even though it's not about workers, The China Syndrome is another as it deals with dangerous conditions in a nuclear plant. Later there was A Civil Action, The Firm, Afterburn, The Insider, Erin Brokovich. Silkwood was an important movie with an important message, and it undoubtedly served as inspiration for the films that followed it.

If you like movies about criminal conspiracies by large companies like the oil industry etc. and if you are not hoping for baam boom bang action, and if you respect the release date of this movie, you shouldn't be disappointed watching it.We got different actors here that have a pretty good career ahead of them and I'm not just talking about Cher (who already was pretty famous at that time) but also Craig T Nelson who started his cinema career about that time, also did Fred Ward and with Ron Silver, the same thing. Not to speak of Kurt Russell and Meryl Streep.So what we've got here is a biographical movie and it is about a conspiracy making one person the victim of something she might haven't done. She's put under pressure and we see how she's dealing with that.The movie is made really good and its worth watching it but the real criticism fails. There is no real political statement in the whole conclusion so please don't expect that, rather expect a nice flick. If you are looking for really critical hot stuff that must have changed things and opinions of people at that time like the "China Syndrome" with Michael Douglas, you are absolutely wrong here.I'm giving it a 5 out of 10 because, positive: I liked the actors and the atmosphere. Negative: the plot builds up to something that doesn't come out, even if it's biographical, this was pretty weak and i don't mean the person, i mean the movie.