‘Dark Waters': Todd Haynes' Eco-Thriller Covers Familiar Territory [Review]

The toxic waters in Parkersburg, West Virginia are at the center of director Todd Haynes’ “Dark Waters,” a conventional but well-shot eco-thriller with a screenplay written by Steven Zaillian (“The Irishman”).

The film is an adaptation of a New York Times Magazine story by Nathaniel Rich, entitled “The Lawyer Who Became DuPont’s Worst Nightmare.” Mark Ruffalo plays the attorney who tried to take down the Dupont Corporation in a nearly 20-year legal lawsuit. It’s another David vs Goliath story involving big corporations, greed and the potential irreparable health damages they cause.

The film works fine as it goes, with nothing unexpected really happening, and then you just start to entirely lose interest in it. The main protagonist Robert Bilott (Ruffalo) is just not that interesting or sharply written. Ruffalo plays Bilott as a passionate and sensitive guy, but it rings false. Playing Billot’s wife, in a sadly underwritten role, is Anne Hathaway, whose talents are also wasted in favor of a role lacking substance.

Following up 2017’s “Wonderstruck”, Haynes shows signs of a dangerous creative slump emerging. Where’s the writer-director who gave us “Carol,” “Safe,” and “Far From Heaven”? DP-extraordinaire Edward Lachmann once again helps Haynes fill out frames with his always beautiful lenses. And so, “Dark Waters” just chugs along with lack of shocks or surprises; in fact, it rarely deviates from the conventional trajectory plenty of other eco-biopics have had before it. From “Silkwood“ to “Erin Brockovich,” we’ve seen movies like this before, but done in better, more involving ways. [C]