Silkwood

Silkwood is a 1983 American drama film directed by Mike Nichols. The screenplay by Nora Ephron and Alice Arlen was inspired by the life of Karen Silkwood. Silkwood was a nuclear whistleblower and a labor union activist who died in a suspicious car accident while investigating alleged wrongdoing at the KerrMcGee plutonium plant where she worked. In real life, her death was vindicated in a victorious 1979 lawsuit, Silkwood v. KerrMcGee, led by attorney Daniel Sheehan and other founding members of the Christic Institute. The jury rendered its verdict ofmillion in damages to be paid to the Silkwood estate her children, the largest amount in damages ever awarded for that kind of case at the time. The Silkwood estate eventually settled for 1.3 million.

Karen Silkwood Meryl Streep, a worker at the KerrMcGee Cimarron Fuel Fabrication Site near Crescent, Oklahoma, shares a ramshackle house with two coworkers, her boyfriend Drew Stephens Kurt Russell and her lesbian friend Dolly Pelliker Cher. She makes plutonium fuel rods for nuclear reactors, where she deals with the threat of exposure to radiation. She has become a union activist, concerned that corporate practices may adversely affect the health of workers. She is also engaged in a conflict with her former commonlaw husband in an effort to have more time with their three children.Because the plant has fallen behind on a major contractostensibly to provide fuel rods for a breeder reactor at the Hanford Siteemployees are required to work long hours of overtime. She believes that managers are falsifying safety reports and cutting corners wherever possible, risking the welfare of the personnel. Karen approaches the union with her concerns and becomes active in lobbying for safeguards. She travels to Washington, D.C. to testify before the Atomic Energy Commission. She interacts with union officials who appear to be more interested in the publicity she is generating than her welfare and that of her coworkers. ........

Source: Wikipedia