The Movie Room

Dark Waters 2019, directed by Todd Haynes

Rating: 8/10

Todd Haynes is one of my favorite directors, so this movie surprised me with how tame it feels compared to many of his other films. Still, he manages to take what could be a stodgy film and make it stand out from most of the crowd.

This feels very much in line with the kind of Oscar baity “issue” movies that cover very important topics but do so in a style that makes them feel very similar. There are standouts like Erin Brockovich and ones that are good watches but not much more like The Post and ones that just aren’t very good like Blood Diamond. I like Dark Waters better than The Post but less than Erin Brockovich. It’s story is like those, in that it is both a familiar cinematic template and that it is also an important true life story that deserves to be told, as a lawyer played by Mark Ruffalo fights against DuPont for their chemicals (Teflon!) that are causing serious damage and have found their way into 99% of humans (and pretty much every other living thing). There is much here like the feeling of being spied upon that is apparent in All the King’s Men to the outrage at the system knowingly doing harm like in The Big Short, but the fact that such a story is not unique is part of the issue and why it should be continued to be brought up. Do I wish movies like this took more creative and artistic risks? Yes! But I am also happy with well-done traditional filmmaking that highlights an issue that people should be worried about. 

And that is not to say that Haynes does not do cool creative things here; he does! For example, the opening sequence takes place decades before the lawyer takes the case and is staged as a really cool twisting of classic horror film style openings, like Jaws. We see a bunch of youths in the woods and then going swimming in the river. We have been trained as movie-goers to see this imagery and immediately judge these teenagers and prepare for Jason Voorhees or Michael Meyers or Bruce the shark to come and kill them in brutal ways to punish them for being promiscuous or drinking or smoking or just in general being rebellious. And this feeling is at first backed up, as a couple adults come by and run them off and treat them like how those teens are treated in those horror movies. But once the teenagers leave the lake unmurdered, the adults ride in their boat and spray chemicals into the water, showing us who the real troublemakers are. This is a really cool and subtle bit of genre play to open the film that shows that even while Dark Waters is going to play by the rules of the important issue film, it is still going to have some distinct flair.

This movie feels like much Oscar-bait of the past, and even though it is not my favorite, I am surprised it didn’t do as well as some of its brethren. It does not stray from the path, but it also makes sure to make its way down that familiar road in an interesting manner.