"Silkwood" (1983)

I would have let young David Strathairn, Craig T. Nelson and Fred Ward take turns sticking their plutonium rods deep inside me.

R1 Fred Ward especially seemed like he'd have been an animal in bed. I don't know why, but I imagine he gave good dick.

“Silk wood” sounds like euphemism for penis.

I never found it preachy and I'm sensitive to that kind of soapbox shit. I think this is a great, gentle drama with a quietly devastating ending. All the more so because it's true.

It’s not preachy in the slightest. Karen is shown as a fully fleshed character we’re invited to dislike.

Kurt Russell's fully-fleshed body invited me to fantasize about him reaming my ass with his Oklahoman redneck cock.

The film all ends in tears.

R7 The movie poster gives away the ending!

R8 it's a striking image, but I've always thought it looked like the poster art for a horror movie.

Cher's character breaks my heart in this. I remember watching it as a young adult and thinking "Oh, my God, this is what I am - this pain -, and everybody knows it". What got me was the second part; seeing how the character couldn't hide her feelings, couldn't hide what she was, and thinking that I, too, was that obvious, sad and exposed.

MARY!

I wish this film were more widely available. I have the Blu-ray that Kino Lorber put out some years back, but it's long out of print and the running prices for it are insane. Disney apparently owns the rights and they have never made it available for any streaming or digital rental.

It was sexy when they stripped the familiar character actress and began painfully scrubbing her down from having been exposed to plutonium.

I liked it, but I'll never forget the moment when Cher's name came on the screen, and the audience burst into laughter.

[quote]It was sexy when they stripped the familiar character actress and began painfully scrubbing her down from having been exposed to plutonium.

It was common knowledge in Hollywood that Sudie Bond never came across a cock she failed to tantalize.

Fun trivia - Sudie was missing all toes on her right foot

Older posters might remember the phrase “Silkwood shower.” This is where it came from.

Why laugh at Chers name? Strange reaction

R17, R13 is just co-opting this:

R17, take a look at the comments under this YouTube video:

It's a marvelous movie, 1 of Nichols' best (and famously his comeback film after several years away) -- and 1 of Streep's best too, as far as that goes.

You want preachy? Check out THE CHINA SYNDROME.

Pauline Kael's pan of this is embarrassing.

Don’t forget that Academy Award nominee Diana Scarwid is in it too!

“I get soooooo tired of your jokes.”

It’s a good film with great performances. At the time, it was a major studio release. Today, I doubt it would get a green light because it’s not a comic book film. Adult dramas used to be the norm, but now they’re an endangered species.

Young (and hot!) Will Patton had a cameo too.

Why doesn’t Disney stream this? Is it too “political”?

R23 Today it would be a prestige Limited Series on HBO with about 3 too many episodes. I'm actually surprised this story hasn't been re-done through a 2020's lens yet.

It’s too bad. A lot of people would watch it if it was on streaming.

R25 It's down to "rights issues" apparently.

Cher was probably second place for the Oscar that year. I bet it was very close. Linda Hunt was amazing in The Year of Living Dangerously and I love her win that year, however I don’t see a white woman playing an Asian man playing well today. Can you imagine?

Glenn was on #2 of a three year streak of being nominated in support.

Also, Happy 77th Birthday, Cher!

Oh, dear! True, today is Cher's birthday. Damn! Happy birthday to her.

I never thought it was preachy. I think its a great movie and I remember being struck by this movie. It stayed on my mind for a while. That ending... I felt the same way when I saw Norma Rae, A few years before.

My Friend told me years back when I got her to watch it with me, that she thought Cher's character set Karen up,by telling the company what she was doing. Does anyone else think that?

[quote]Linda Hunt was amazing in The Year of Living Dangerously and I love her win that year, however I don’t see a white woman playing an Asian man playing well today. Can you imagine?

Billy Kwan is Eurasian (half white/half Asian).

Why would it be okay for a full Asian to play him but not full white?

I didn’t say anything about it not being “okay.” But you can’t be that obtuse not to see that in the times we currently live in, there would be some kind of backlash about it.

Love this film.

I loved the Georges Delerue score. I remember one critic at the time complaining that parts of it were too “romantic” but I thought it worked perfectly for the film.

I agree with Pauline Kael about Scarwid in this movie: “There’s no vulgar life in Silkwood except for Diana Scarwid’s Angela, a cosmetician in a mortuary who has an affair with Dolly and lives with the three for a while. […] She prolongs syllables and twists meanings—she sounds like Jean Harlow as a Valley Girl. […] And it’s a lucky thing that Angela the cosmetician is around to ply her professional skills on this movie, because Silkwood is a stiff.”

Kael also notes that how the ending is unsatisfactory; Jane Fonda had previously tried and failed to secure Silkwood’s life rights, so instead she incorporated the car chase into The China Syndrome.

That said, I do like Meryl’s a cappella rendition of Amazing Grace.

Both Streep and Cher received Oscar nominations for their roles. They lost, but Cher won a Golden Globe.

Her only other serious film work was for “Come Back to the 5 and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean” the year before for which she got great reviews. “Silkwood” proved to the critics that she could do drama and that Jimmy Dean wasn’t a fluke.

I remember all of this at the time. It’s hard to believe that was 40 years ago.

“Silkwood shower” was referenced on 30 Rock and on Glee.

[quote] she sounds like Jean Harlow as a Valley Girl

This bitch Kael was almost savage. I say 'almost' because - I keep imagining it - had she REALLY been savage, in a truly unfiltered way (the way we know she was capable of, but perhaps never actually got to see), she'd never have been published. Imagine this bitch without an editor, a contract, a steady mainstream gig like the one she had at the NYT etc. In other words, imagine her writing her own zine or something, what that would have looked like. The BIBLE OF BITCHFEST, Satanic Version.

Here's another Cher movie for DL to chew on... This is one of my fave modern romantic comedies, with memorable John Patrick Shanley lines, "Moonstruck." Here's my take on this great ensemble, led by Cher & Nicholas Cage:

Peter Travers (not necessarily a beacon of film criticism IMO) also hated Silkwood: ""The notion that Eastern Establishment types like Nichols-Ephron-Streep can tell us what it's like to be a worker in Oklahoma is nothing if not patronizing."

I get what he's saying, but I think he missed the point.

R41 I didn’t read this as anything other than a compliment. Kael preferred dizzy dames and neurotics (early Jane Fonda, Faye Dunaway, Debra Winger).

Kael, like Travers, didn’t like Silkwood because it was dour and mournful. Everyone involved, with the welcome exception of Scarwid, was too conscious of being noble. The other problem is that not a whole lot was known about Silkwood by the time she died, so the movie is evasive and elliptical.

As talented as Meryl is, I do think Kael was right in saying that she was the wrong actress for the role. The same was true for Postcards from the Edge.

The parts of "The China Syndrome" set at the nuclear power plant are suspenseful and very well filmed, but some of the other scenes are cheesy and there's a terrible Stephen Bishop song on the soundtrack. I'm not big fan of Jack Lemmon in his dramatic roles, but I thought he was pretty good in this one.

Shirtless Kurt Russell with his pants unbuttoned with the Confederate flag above his bed....

R45 I think The China Syndrome is great but that (I guess) plot twist with the film camera is just ridiculous considering how fucking loud it would be.

I always thought that Jane Fonda’s hair was too orange in The China Syndrome.

Didn’t Pauline give one of her passive-aggressive comments, like “for being miscast, Streep gives a very good performance.”

Her writing and opinions were sometimes so annoying. As if people can’t make their own opinion.

In hindsight, she also was hard on Streep because she didn’t look or act the way Pauline expected females to look or act like.

I remember later after she stopped writing film revives, reading that Pauline liked The River Wild, and thought hmm.

R49 people read criticism (of film, art, music) to glean new insights, both into the specific work and the medium more generally. Isn’t that the whole point of DL, to discuss topics of interest and (hopefully) expand one’s knowledge or point of view?

I don’t think it’s so “passive aggressive” to say that an actor can be technically proficient but physically just wrong for the role.

Kael might have been “annoying,” but she sure had more to say than “I thought hmmm.” She liked Meryl when she wasn’t self-conscious about being noble (like in Silkwood or Out of Africa). She praised her work in a Cry in the Dark/Evil Angels.

I understand. But she had her favorites and her targets, and was a dilettante.

[quote]I always thought that Jane Fonda’s hair was too orange in The China Syndrome.

Exposure to China Syndrome will do that to a girl.

I always thought Kael's best reviews were the shorter ones, where she didn't have the space to ramble on endlessly, contradict herself five times, and take down everyone who dared to have an opinion different from hers (something she seemed to consider shocking and morally suspect). Around the time "Silkwood" came out she wrote a relatively short but very interesting and insightful review of a great Swedish movie, "The Flight of the Eagle"; less was definitely more, but I don't think anyone at "The New Yorker" had the guts to tell her that.

This movie is WOKE!! We can ban books. Why the hell can't we ban movies??!

[quote]I remember all of this at the time. It’s hard to believe that was 40 years ago.

R39 and for you in 1983, "forty years ago" was 1943 (WWII era) which is as far away from us in 2023 as 1903 was to you guys.

I could totally see this movie being banned in Florida. Along with any movie depicting the holocaust.

Interesting R53. Can I ask what you found so insightful about it? There’s a lot of plot exposition and her claim that Troell achieves a “unity of image and idea not seen since the silent era” is a bit overheated, though I’ll admit I haven’t seen it. I also think it’s only a few paragraphs shorter than the review of Silkwood.

I like the movie Silkthroat

For-mal-DEE-hyde!

Isn’t this the review where she Kael goes into some ridiculous analysis of how Streep grabbed a sandwich from someone and how her lesbian crush Debra Winger would have done that so much more “authentically?” She was really full of shit sometimes.

You got it, R60. "Streep acts out the chewing," or words to that effect. Yawn.

[quote] “Silk wood” sounds like euphemism for penis.

Especially one that is thoroughly lubed.

R61 yeah , I can’t think of any other top critic who had such obvious “favorites” (especially of the actresses) and then arranged her “thesis” of a review to confirm her favoritism, often at the cost of a lot of credibility.

I've never got around to seeing this film but I read an interview where the late actress Sandy Allen was up for a role in Silkwood as well as to be the wife of the giant villain Jaws in the 007 films. Neither which happened. Does anyone know what part she would've played in this one?

I think this is one of Meryl's best performances. It's not showy or scenery chewing like later performances.

I love how Nichols captures their every day lives. He was a brilliant director. Silkwood and Working Girl are two of my favourite Films of the '80s.

I also have the Blu Ray. Glad to own it since it's out of print but the transfer is an old master. I wish this coukd be part of the Criterion Collection. It deserves a special edition.

R57 I thought it was a great review of a great movie; if you ever have a chance, see it on the big screen. Some of her insights that I particularly appreciated:

"Periodically, the action is transformed into a black-and-white still; the effect is of a memento mori, and it helps to give The Flight of the Eagle a disturbing visual texture -- a poignancy that goes beyond the usual epic film. We seem to be both inside this expedition, watching the interactions of the three men, and outside it, seeing it as something in the past."

"In the icy wastes, when the men think of erotic and happier times, the flashback fantasies are unnaturally bright and luminous and almost stiff--as if the men's memories were freezing too."

"We see the three men gradually bleached of their differences. In their last days, they're all in such terrible shape that they turn into joking pals. Toward the end, it's as if they shared one memory and had become one person."

I rewatched The China Syndrome for the first time since it's release about a year ago and it has aged so well which surprised me.

Preferred it more the second time around than the first.

I'm eager to see how Silkwood hold up. I liked back in 1984 and it is definitely one of M's best performances.

Cher says one of the best, funniest lines ever.

Karen: You left the door unlocked! You can’t do that, someone could’ve come in here and raped me!

Dolly: Who would come in here and rape you that you ain’t already fucked yet?!

I loved David Strathairn in Molly Dodd.

Is it streaming or still locked out by the corporate interests?

R70 it’s locked

DVD is the only option

fully agree with r1 and r2

r69 oh, Molly Dodd. *sigh*

The message of the movie was "companies should invest in safety and not let their employees get irradiated". Does that really count as preachy, OP?

I remember watching this as a kid when it was first on cable, and the shower scenes were so frightening to me.

As I and others said on THE TURNING POINT thread (currently still active!), Kael always had a problem with films with strong female relationships.

The photo in OP's link..... damn... I love it when a nice looking guy is shirtless, has on a good worn pair of jeans and has that top button open with just a little of the zipper down... So. Fucking. Hot.

I want 1983 Kurt Russell's plutonium rod splashing energy inside of me......

R77, that's an intriguing notion about Kael's "always [having] a problem with films with strong female relationships." She certainly tore into RICH AND FAMOUS (a review even more notorious for her homophobic semi-outing of George Cukor) and BLACK WIDOW ("You keep waiting for them to go lesbian or something"), though as I recall she liked PERSONAL BEST.

Silkthroat is a good movie

I could easily believe that Kael never had a deep friendship with a woman and didn't understand those relationships.

It's on Hulu now. It hasn't been available in forever. Great movie.

One of the two main actresses’ best roles - so heart-rending

I love it and I don't see it as preachy. I'm not sure how it could be preachy, this woman was murdered by Big Nuke.

I've always loved this movie and way back when I first saw it, it had a profound effect on my thinking. I never thought it was preachy at all.

Hulu has a new documentary.

The union official she was driving to meet that night is still alive:

[quote]Shortly after 7 p.m, Silkwood left a union meeting at the Hub Café, getting into her '73 white Honda Civic for the roughly half-hour drive to a Holiday Inn in Oklahoma City, where she would also be joined by a union official. When she had not arrived by 9 p.m., the two men she was meeting knew something had to be wrong.

[quote]"She should've stayed right there, in Crescent, and [the reporter] and I should've gone up there," said Steve Wodka, Silkwood's former official with the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers' union. "And not have put her in the vulnerability of driving down the highway. There's no question about that."

It’s true that Christina Crawford was great in this.

I first heard the term Silkwood Shower in an old internet cartoon, Mr Wong, back in the Summer of 2000. I knew the reference from having seen Silkwood in the theater my Junior year of High School, and yes, it was totally for Cher that I went to see Silkwood in the first place, cuz I am THAT gay.

Kerr McGee are really rather pure evil. If Karen wasn't enough of a reason to boycott them, Google the terms 'Kerr McGee' and 'West Chicago, Illinois' and feast on their epic awfulness.

[quote]I first heard the term Silkwood Shower in an old internet cartoon, Mr Wong,

I remember that cartoon.