The Atlantic

A Chilling True Story of Corporate Indifference

Depicting a lawyer’s fight to uncover a decades-long pattern of poisoning, <em>Dark Waters </em>delivers both justice and a crushing sense of dread.
Source: Focus Features

The pensive legal movie was once a Hollywood standby, reliably delivering courtroom tension, grandstanding performances, and a satisfying assurance of justice that was only enhanced when the story behind the script turned out to be true. Todd Haynes’s new film, ,fits that bill: It chronicles the Cincinnati ongoing efforts, beginning in the ’90s, to expose how the company DuPont for decades after learning that they caused fatal diseases. As ais interesting enough. But around the hard work and do-goodery, Haynes also provides a sense of crushing dread—the kind of unsolvable paranoia these procedure-bound movies usually work to counter.

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from The Atlantic

The Atlantic4 min read
Hayao Miyazaki’s Anti-war Fantasia
Once, in a windowless conference room, I got into an argument with a minor Japanese-government official about Hayao Miyazaki. This was in 2017, three years after the director had announced his latest retirement from filmmaking. His final project was
The Atlantic4 min read
When Private Equity Comes for a Public Good
This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. In some states, public funds are being poured into t
The Atlantic4 min readAmerican Government
How Democrats Could Disqualify Trump If the Supreme Court Doesn’t
Near the end of the Supreme Court’s oral arguments about whether Colorado could exclude former President Donald Trump from its ballot as an insurrectionist, the attorney representing voters from the state offered a warning to the justices—one evoking

Related