Dark Waters

Todd Haynes adapted this from Nathaniel Rich’s 2016 New York Times Magazine piece about the lawyer who became DuPont’s worst nightmare. The case it follows really did end: on 11 February 2017 DuPont agreed to settle roughly 3,550 lawsuits over PFOA exposure traced to the Washington Works plant outside Parkersburg for 670.7 million dollars, with Chemours paying half. The casting reaches into the real story too. Lawyer Robert Bilott, his wife Sarah and plaintiffs Joe and Darlene Kiger appear briefly, and Bucky Bailey is played by no actor but by himself. There is a first on the camera side too: Edward Lachman says this is the first picture he and Haynes shot digitally, yet he put old Speed Panchros and Canon K-35s in front of the sensor. His references were Klute, The Parallax View and All the President’s Men. Rather than pulling saturation down, Lachman contaminates the image by pushing a yellow green cast into the law firm and the houses while leaving exteriors cold. A good fit if you want the image itself compromised, and read that indoor yellow green as an extension of the subject rather than decoration. Not for viewers expecting a story resolved in a courtroom and closed with a clear victory; what closes this one is a signed settlement.