Silkwood (1983) on Netflix
R19832h 11mBiographyDramaHistory
Karen Silkwood makes plutonium fuel rods near Crescent, Oklahoma, and lives with her boyfriend Drew Stephens and friend Dolly Pelliker. She believes the plant is cutting corners on safety.
- Netflix3.7/5
- IMDb7.1/1025,105 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes77%
Trailer
Plot summary
Karen Silkwood works at the Kerr-McGee plant near Crescent, Oklahoma, fabricating fuel rods for nuclear reactors, and shares a house with her boyfriend, Drew Stephens, and her friend Dolly Pelliker. She is a union activist who worries that the company's practices endanger the workers' health, and the plant, behind on a contract for the Hanford Site in Washington state, pushes long hours and weekend overtime. Convinced that managers falsify safety reports and cut corners, she brings her concerns to the union and lobbies for safeguards, then gives testimony before the Atomic Energy Commission in Washington, D.C. At home she is also pressing her former common-law husband for more time with their three children.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Silkwood (1983)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Executive producers Buzz Hirsch and Larry Cano became fascinated by Karen Silkwood's story as graduate students at the University of California, Los Angeles, and spent roughly nine years developing it; Warner Bros. first wanted Jane Fonda as Silkwood before the project dissipated over the estate's lawsuit against Kerr-McGee.
- Executive producers Arthur Hirsch and Larry Cano, who began the project as graduate film students at UCLA, set a U.S. Supreme Court precedent on First Amendment protection of confidential sources for filmmakers, as is done for journalists.
- One scene has Silkwood setting off a radiation alarm at the plant; in reality Silkwood herself had forty times the legal limit of radioactive contamination in her system.
- The film marked a departure for two of its stars: it is one of the first serious works of Cher, previously known mostly for her singing, and of Russell, who was then widely known for his work in the action genre.
- The real Karen Silkwood was later ranked the 47th greatest movie hero by the American Film Institute, with the film itself ranked among its most inspiring.
