Dark Waters

Binged on National Geographic's Atlas of Cursed Places when the episode on West Virginia took a decidedly investigative journalistic tone and the Mothman was soon set aside as the car tyres of the production team were slashed.

By coincidence, Dark Waters was available on the movie channel around the same time too.  I'm not sure if Sam Sheridan in the National Geographic series and the Dark Waters were about the same case though both happened in West Virginia.

The 2019 Dark Waters headlined by Mark Ruffalo and Anne Hathaway is a dramatization of Robert Bilott who filed lawsuits against DuPont on behalf of plaintiffs from West Virginia who fell ill from DuPont's dumping of chemicals.  The plaintiffs were initially disbelieving of Bilott, as DuPont was the largest employer in West Virginia.  The case dragged for years and DuPont settled for more than $700 million.

Dark Waters wasn't a fast-moving movie.  Rather it was at most times, dark and slow-moving.  Yet it was gripping and evocative.

Perfluorooctanoic acid, the chemical that DuPont dumped, was found to have causative relationship with cancers.  It is found in many items that people can come into contact daily, one of which is the teflon coating on non-stick pans.  Today's non-stick-pans claim to not cause health concerns if used below 300 degrees Celsius, but as humans find out time and again, what was claimed to not be hazardous could likely be so in the future as testing techniques improve and causative relationships established.

From the summer of 1999 when Bilott first filed a suit against DuPont till 2017 when DuPont agreed to settle, it was 18 long years and Bilott certainly was a very very persistent person, going against a very large corporation.  Granted Dark Waters hinted at how tough it was.  But Dark Waters happened in America.  What if it happened in other parts of the world, like Latin America or Asia, would such cases even come to light?

It was interesting to see Mark Ruffalo in characters other than Bruce Banner/Hulk. And it demonstrates that a good piece of work does not always require over-the-top explosives or CGI or overly dramatic in-your-face emoting.  

Anne Hathaway, who played Bilott's wife Sarah, is much younger than Mark Ruffalo yet she didn't seem out of place acting the role of Sarah opposite Ruffalo.  She has really come a long way since The Princess Diaries.

Dark Waters was interesting to watch, and it didn't try to be preachy about environmentalism or about how capitalism was devious.  Maybe law schools and departments of chemistry and chemical engineering could consider making students and faculty watch this.