Dark Waters Review

This review comes from my Letterboxd profile, where I write reviews like this for every movie I see.

I will admit, the pacing of the first half of this film was really strange for me. Even though I was intrigued by Dark Waters as it began, I found myself slowly wondering more and more where it was going as the film progressed. It felt very similar to other films like this I had seen before despite how enjoyable the film was, and even though I love Anne Hathaway as an actress, I had a hard time finding her character likable. However, the second half of this film, the half of the film that transforms Dark Waters from a simple Rob Bilott biopic to a relevant and thrilling courtroom drama, elevates the material so much more and makes the film ten times more investing than it already was. Once the courtroom investigations actually start, my attention was glued to this film and I found so much more to appreciate in it than just a story about a lawyer that discovered the shady actions of a large American corporation.

At its core, yes, this film is meant to tell that story to a broad audience because it's a story that deserves to be told. However, in that first half, it definitely feels like it was based on a magazine article instead of a book because of how stretched out it often feels. That second half, though, reveals this film's true intentions and the depths it's willing to explore with all of the complicated elements behind solving this case. Even though it should be, it's clear this is not going to be a week-long "You screwed up and need to fix it" trial. It explores the difficulties in legally fighting larger corporations, the blurred lines between what the law allows and what is clearly negatively affecting a population, how science and even facts as a whole can be altered to protect certain groups, and the difficulties of differentiating between corporations and the individuals that work for them -- their morals, their opinions, their work ethic, etc. Most of all, though, it explores how people can so easily turn on someone even when they're doing something that in the long run is seen by the majority as a good deed. Mark Ruffalo is truly terrific in this film, and as time progresses in this film, you can feel the weight of this case getting heavier on both his shoulders and on yours as an audience member. Heck, there were even two moments where significant progress is made when I actually pumped my fists in the air because I was so excited and invested in what was going on.

Dark Waters doesn't sugarcoat the often shady loopholes prevalent in the legal system of the United States. It doesn't try to shrug them off and it doesn't give a perfect solution for the problem. However, it shows audience members that it's important to scrutinize the details as carefully as possible to make sure that an argument is truly substantial in its weight, not just in legal cases, but in everyday life. As someone who is deeply fascinated with history, film, artistic expression, and historical preservation, it scares me to think about the amount of data, facts, art, writing, and content in general that has been or could be lost to time, edited out of context, or simply hidden out of fear of the consequences that could come from it. Dark Waters explores the dangers and unfortunate prevalence of that kind of fact editing, and it does so enthrallingly. My only issues with this film are that strange pacing in the first half and Anne Hathaway's character is written very inconsistently. I thought that she argued with Rob and seemingly felt like he was against her far too often in the first half of this film for me to sympathize with her when she had genuine anger in the second half of the film, and that was really strange to me. Aside from that, though, if I were to sum up my thoughts in a sentence, it would be that Dark Waters is the most necessary courtroom drama to watch right now, even if it's unfortunately not going to be regarded as a classic in fifty years time.

Letter Grade: A

God, I haven't been this excited to watch new movies in a LONG time, and it feels so good! Tomorrow, I'll hopefully be back with a couple more reviews. I have a couple of ideas for movies in mind, but we'll see how it all works out.