Mark Ruffalo stars as "Robert Bilott" in director Todd Haynes’ “Dark Waters", a Focus Features release.
Directed by: Todd Haynes
Written by: Mario Correa and Matthew Michael Carnahan
Starring: Mark Ruffalo, Anne Hathaway, Tim Robbins, Bill Camp, Victor Garber, Mare Winningham, Bill Pullman
Mark Ruffalo’s career continues to amaze me. There is an earnestness and a seriousness for each of the roles he has taken on. Within that seriousness, there is an empathy drawing you into his performance and we feel his compulsion to see something through to its end.
In Todd Haynes’s latest film, “Dark Waters,” Ruffalo takes on, not only DuPont Chemical Corporation, but the very health of a small community and ultimately the nation when it is discovered that DuPont purposely withheld vital information about the toxic pollution of a West Virginia town’s water supply.
Ruffalo plays Robert Bilott, a Philadelphia corporate defense attorney, whose law firm, Taft Stettinius & Hollister, curiously starts out as a part of DuPont’s defense against such claims. Haynes paints Bilott as a hard working attorney, who understands where his paycheck comes from, but doesn’t mind it either. He plays his promotion off with jokes as his status raises, leaving behind colleagues.
Haynes sets up the drama in a bold way as a mysterious visit by a cattle farmer, Wilbur Tennant (Bill Camp) rattles Bilott; firstly because he wasn’t expecting a visitor and secondly, he wasn’t expecting to revisit his home, Parkersburg, West Virginia. Tennant, an obtuse individual storms his waiting room with a box of video tapes, demanding that Bilott look at them as he levies a charge of corporate malfeasance.
Bilott, who has been defending the very company that Tennant charges a wrongdoing with, doesn’t want to believe him. Nevertheless, Ruffalo’s earnest and empathetic nature compels him to start investigating, which as we know eventually takes years.
The script by Mario Correa and Matthew Michael Carnahan, based on Nathaniel Rich’s The New York Times Magazine’s “The Lawyer Who Became DuPont’s Worst Nightmare” methodically lays out the evidentiary phase as Bilott starts uncovering the surface-level evidence. His investigation takes him to Phil Donnelly, the CEO and Chairman of E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company. Donnelly, played by Victor Garber is at first helpful. There’s an early soiree where Donnelly and Bilott are friendly. As Bilott’s investigation deepens, Donnelly withdraws his support.
Haynes and Ruffalo underpin the dramatic tension with Billot’s family life or lack thereof.
His wife, Sarah played by Anne Hathaway, is also an attorney. However, she is a stay-at-home mom, taking care of their kids. We get a sense early on that there are challenges in their relationship, that Rob is keeping things from her; it’s not an untrusting relationship between them, rather a “I’m protecting you by not telling you everything” type of relationship.
“Dark Waters,” follows in the footsteps of Michael Mann’s “The Insider” with a solid antagonist in its own unfolding drama. Haynes uses his pacing in a deliberate and methodical manner to stymie Rob at every corner, through his own firm; DuPont, the legal system, the pressure to find the evidence and collect it, and his own health.
On the periphery of Rob’s discovery phase is lead partner Tom Terp played with great bombast by Tim Robbins. Robbins’ role is dialog-heavy; he relishes the opportunity to chew scenes, especially when Rob’s investigation finally leads to a push by the law firm that formally represented DuPont. There’s a scene that sets the third act in motion, where a junior partner, James Ross (William Jackson Harper) speaks out against the firm taking on the class lawsuit. An exhausted Billot is silent while the established partners argue for taking on the case. Terp just blasts out what the audience is feeling, not even looking at the reams of bound paper in front of him: he knows that their moral obligation is to defend the indefensible.
Bill Camp deserves recognition for his performance as Tennant, carrying a range of emotion as he tries to save his farm and then, desperately, his family. Victor Garber’s repulsed look as he is presented evidence of his company’s malfeasance echoes our own horrors.
But, it is Anne Hathaway’s silently frustrated performance that reminds us of what’s truly at stake: not the burden of carrying the case (I know the feeling, I’ve pulled stunts like Billot did before, but not at such a great sacrifice), but the burden of not being there for his kids and wife as they grow up around him.
Haynes cleverly disguises the passage of time through each vehicle Rob drives. There’s a running gag throughout the film that he buys cheap, used cars until they run into the ground, a sign of his sparse nature.
That’s the brilliance of Haynes’s direction: all throughout the drama and the horrific scenes that permeate the film, there are subtle touches that define each performance as well as the flow of the film, the subtlety punctuated with explosive, emotional anger, keeping our pulse rate elevated.
“Dark Waters” is about the compulsive nature of Rob Bilott. Ruffalo’s earnest and empathetic performance plays right into the unfolding drama. That drama plays directly into the themes that are on the minds of moviegoers around the world.
And that makes “Dark Waters” a compelling and worthy trip to the movies.
3 out of 4 stars
