Silkwood feels left over from the 1970s, not only due to its setting, but also because of its fringe characters, anti-establishment thrust, and increasing air of paranoia. Meryl Streep plays Karen Silkwood, who in real life died in a one-car crash while in the midst of exposing lax safety standards at the Oklahoma plutonium factory where she worked. Streep is as loose as she’s ever been, especially in the opening scenes, joking with coworkers on the factory floor and breezing through the lunchroom, stealing bites of sandwiches. Her Karen is at once a breath of fresh air and sort of annoying; she becomes an activist almost by accident, on account of her instinctively iconoclastic attitude. Silkwood also offers wonderfully lived-in and relaxed performances by Kurt Russell, as Karen’s live-in lover, and Cher, as their lesbian roommate. (Russell and Streep have incredible heat.) Director Mike Nichols, working from a script by Nora Ephron and Alice Arlen, fares better with the smaller, unhurried character moments than the movie’s thriller components, which are somewhat haphazardly inserted into the narrative proper and eventually bring things to a rushed, unsatisfying end.
(5/1/2026)
