Dark Waters (2019): can you fight big corporations?

A review of Dark Waters. Ever heard the rumour that the Teflon pan your mum uses at home can cause cancer? If you haven't, we must be the same age. Or maybe we just don't get out much.

I searched around on Google, and the issue only started coming up in 2015. Can Teflon cause cancer? from Tribun Kaltim.

I won't go on and on about Teflon here. But I want to review a film based on the true story behind that case. A brilliant lawyer who dared to take on Big Evil Corporate, and in doing so taught the world about the dangers of DuPont's Teflon. He also helped the people of West Virginia (around the dumping ground for DuPont's chemical plant) get their right to health.

Dark Waters is a 2019 film starring Mark Ruffalo. It's a drama / thriller, and Mark Ruffalo also starred in a similar film in 2015, Spotlight.

Dark Waters is based on a true story. More precisely, it's adapted from an in-depth report in The New York Times, "The Lawyer Who Became DuPont's Worst Nightmare".

DuPont is an American chemical company that developed lots of polymers, like Vespel, neoprene, nylon, Corian, Teflon, Mylar, Kapton, Kevlar, Zemdrain, M5 fibre, Nomex, Tyvek, Sorona, Corfam and Lycra.

This review of Dark Waters is more about the heart of the film. I won't talk about the cinematography, the script, the acting and so on, because I'm no expert. Just a film lover.

tl;dr: You really have to watch this film. If you're not used to the genre you'll probably get bored, but there's a lot you can take from it. How one man can push on and beat Big Evil Corporate.

"Sue Me"

Phil says this line because he feels pressured by Bilott. Phil is hiding something from Bilott and doesn't want the secret to come out.

What really gets me is that Robert Bilott and Phil have a good history together. Because Rob isn't your typical environmental lawyer.

His clients are chemical companies that need advice on government regulations about various chemicals. One of those clients is DuPont. And Phil Donnelly is DuPont's in-house lawyer.

But who'd have thought Bilott would be the one to bring DuPont its worst nightmare? Who knows the future, right… Friends can become enemies, enemies can become friends.

When the 2008 crisis hit

If you've seen The Big Short and Inside Job, you know about the 2008 crisis in the US that cost so many Americans their jobs.

Even when the 2008 crisis hit, the DuPont case still hadn't been resolved. In 2008 it was still at the research stage, with a panel of scientists looking for the link between PFOA waste and the health of the people of West Virginia.

What makes it even more maddening is that, as part of the settlement, sick people couldn't sue DuPont while the research was going on.

Imagine all those sick people, needing money, and then the crisis hits. It's as if Rob Bilott had given those 70,000 people false hope.

And imagine being Rob Bilott, carrying the weight and suffering of 70,000 people with no idea when the research would be done. And even once it was done, Bilott and those 70,000 people still didn't know if the results would go their way.

That call

After 7 years, the results finally came out. It feels so good. When you feel like you've done everything, fought with everything you have, and all that's left is waiting for the result. But the result only comes 7 years later.

It wasn't until December 2011 that Bilott got the call from the researchers with the results. And they were very satisfying for Bilott and the people of West Virginia. 3,535 people had cancer and other diseases caused by the PFOA waste.

The research found a link between PFOA, used in Teflon, and disease: kidney cancer, testicular cancer, thyroid disease, high cholesterol, pre-eclampsia and ulcerative colitis.

But that's not the happy ending yet. DuPont's promise to cover the medical care of everyone affected by the PFOA waste was ignored.

The only thing you can do is to never give up!

To me, this final scene is really powerful. Never give up! Because DuPont didn't honour the earlier settlement, the 3,535 people took it to court. And that's exactly DuPont's strategy. It's a very common strategy for big companies. Companies have the resources and the time, while individuals and communities don't. By one count, those 3,535 cases would only be finished in the year 2890.

What Dark Waters comes down to

This review of Dark Waters is more about the scenes that wowed me enough to write it. From this film I learned (1) how heavy life's challenges can be. When you think you've done everything, the trials just keep coming.

(2) What we see isn't always what it seems. Remember Teflon? Turns out it's really dangerous. (3) Never give up. Even when people mock you, even when you're up against a big company. (4) When you see something wrong, please speak up! Or when you work for a company that makes lots of money, but one of the downsides is your health. Or the health of lots of other people. You have to have compassion in what you do. Just like the Nike ad slogan, Believe in something even if it means sacrificing everything.