Rated: M
Directed by: Todd Havnes
Written by: Mario Correa and Matthew Michael Carnahan
Based on The New York Times Magazine article, “The Lawyer Who Became DuPont’s Worst Nightmare,” by Nathaniel Rich
Produced by: Mark Ruffalo, Pamela Koffler, Christine Vachon
Starring: Mark Ruffalo, Anne Hathaway, Tim Robbins, Bill Camp, Victor Garber, Mare Winningham, William Jackson Harper, Bill Pullman.
Better living through chemistry – that’s the catch phrase from big chem company, DuPont.
For decades the company has been sticking Teflon onto everything: carpet, teeth whitener; it’s the stuff that makes fry pans, non-stick. The stuff is everywhere, making DuPont one billion a year in pure profit.
When Rob Bilott (Mark Ruffalo) makes partner at a prestigious Cincinnati law firm, it’s everything he and his wife Sarah (Anne Hathaway) have worked for.
Until a couple of farmers from West Virginia turn up at the office with a box full of video tapes of dead or dying cows.
Rob’s grandmother who lives in the area gave the farmers his name because he’s an environmental attorney. A corporate environmental defence attorney for the chemical companies.
But what Rob sees when he visits his grandmother is enough to sue DuPont, resulting in a case spanning two decades, a case he continues to fight today.
It’s a classic David and Goliath tale of the small people being knowingly poisoned by the big chem company for profit.
Even with compassion fatigue (after seeing so many of these films and after watching what’s on the news), I was still stunned by the evil of a company that would knowingly lace cigarettes of employees with a toxic, man-made chemical to see what would happen.
It’s a stark tale based on the true story and The New York Times Magazine article, “The Lawyer Who Became DuPont’s Worst Nightmare,” by Nathaniel Rich.
Adding to the bleak story is the way the film was shot, in the middle of a bitterly cold winter of snow, flat colourless buildings in a small community filled with sick residents.
Stark and Anne Hathaway cast in a wholly unsuitable role – I just couldn’t believe her performance as the housewife: it’s depressing.
Yet, it’s a movie that starts to answer the question of why so many people seem to be getting cancer these days.
Not that every cancer is accountable to the dreaded man-made PFOA compound. But this is a story of just one of the ‘forever chemicals’ floating around. That once in the body can never be processed and eliminated.
It’s not the family or the expose that gives this film momentum – the story here is the truth of the story itself. And it’s bleak.
