Dark Waters (2019 film)

Dark Waters is a 2019 American legal thriller film directed by Todd Haynes and written by Mario Correa and Matthew Michael Carnahan. The story dramatizes Robert Bilott's case against the chemical manufacturing corporation DuPont after they contaminated a town with unregulated chemicals. It stars Mark Ruffalo as Bilott, along with Anne Hathaway, Tim Robbins, Bill Camp, Victor Garber, Mare Winningham, William Jackson Harper, and Bill Pullman.

The film is based on the 2016 New York Times Magazine article "The Lawyer Who Became DuPont's Worst Nightmare" by Nathaniel Rich. An account of the investigation and case was first publicized in the book Stain-Resistant, Nonstick, Waterproof and Lethal: The Hidden Dangers of C8 (2007) by Callie Lyons, a Mid-Ohio Valley journalist who covered the controversy as it was unfolding. Parts of the pollution and coverup story were also reported by Mariah Blake, whose 2015 article "Welcome to Beautiful Parkersburg, West Virginia" was a National Magazine Award finalist, and Sharon Lerner, whose series "Bad Chemistry" ran in The Intercept.

Bilott wrote his own memoir, Exposure (2019), detailing his 20-year legal battle against DuPont.

Dark Waters began a limited theatrical run on November 22, 2019 by Focus Features, before going wide on December 6. The film received positive reviews from critics and grossed $23 million.

Plot
In 1998, Robert Bilott is a corporate defense lawyer from Cincinnati working for the law firm Taft Stettinius & Hollister. Farmer Wilbur Tennant, who knows Bilott's grandmother, asks him to investigate the numerous deaths of dairy cattle at his farm in Parkersburg, West Virginia. Tennant connects the deaths to the chemical manufacturing corporation DuPont and gives Robert a large case of videotapes related to the case.

Robert visits the Tennants' farm, where he learns that 190 cows have died and exhibited unusual medical conditions, such as bloated organs, blackened teeth, and tumors. DuPont attorney Phil Donnelly says that he is not aware of Tennant's concerns but will help in any way he can. Bilott files a small suit to gain information through legal discovery of the chemicals dumped at a nearby landfill. When he finds nothing useful in the EPA report, he realizes the chemicals might be unregulated.

Bilott confronts Donnelly at an industry event, leading to an angry exchange. In response to his request to broaden discovery, DuPont sends hundreds of boxes. Bilott finds numerous references to PFOA, but has difficulty learning about it. He learns that PFOA is perfluorooctanoic acid, used to manufacture Teflon, which is widely used in American homes for nonstick frying pans and carpet flooring. DuPont has been running tests of the effect of PFOA for decades, finding that it causes cancer and congenital disabilities, but kept the findings private. Dupont dumped several tons of toxic sludge in a landfill uphill from Tennant's farm. PFOA and similar compounds are forever chemicals, chemicals that never leave the bloodstream and slowly accumulate.

The local community shuns Tennant for suing their most significant employer. Bilott encourages him to accept DuPont's settlement, but he refuses, wanting justice, and reveals that both he and his wife have cancer. Bilott sends a summary and supporting documentation of the DuPont issues to the EPA and United States Department of Justice, among others. The EPA fined DuPont $16.5 million.

Bilott is unsatisfied, as he realizes the residents of Parkersburg will continue to suffer the effects of the PFOA and more will likely die from disease. He seeks an agreement for DuPont to pay for medical monitoring for all residents of Parkersburg in one large class-action lawsuit. However, DuPont sends a deceptive letter notifying residents of the presence of PFOA, thus starting the statute of limitations running, giving any further legal action only 12 months to begin.

Since PFOA is unregulated, Robert's team argues that the corporation is liable, as the amount in contaminated waters was 6 times higher than the 1 part per billion deemed safe by DuPont's internal documents. In court, DuPont claims that the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection has recently found that 150 parts per billion are safe (contradicting DuPont's scientific findings since the 1970s).

The locals protest and the story becomes national news. DuPont agrees to settle for benefits valued at over $300 million. As the company is required to carry out medical monitoring only if scientists prove that PFOA causes the ailments, an independent scientific review is set up. To gather data, Robert's team tells locals they can get their settlement money if/when they donate blood samples for testing. Nearly 70,000 people donate to the study.

Seven years pass with no results from the study. Tennant dies, and Bilott suffers financially following several pay cuts, because the case is not providing revenue. His marriage and health are strained.

After seven years, the scientific panel contacts Bilott and tells him that PFOA has been linked to two types of cancer and four other diseases. But DuPont withdraws from its agreement. Bilott decides to proceed to sue the company one case at a time. He wins the first three cases and juries award multi-million dollar settlements. DuPont settles the remaining 3,500 known disease cases for $671 million.

Production
On September 21, 2018, it was announced that Todd Haynes would direct the film, then titled Dry Run, from a script by Matthew Michael Carnahan. It would be produced by Participant Media along with Mark Ruffalo. In November 2018, Ruffalo was officially set to star in the film.

In January 2019, Anne Hathaway, Tim Robbins, Bill Camp, Victor Garber, Mare Winningham, William Jackson Harper, and Bill Pullman joined the cast of the film, with Christine Vachon and Pamela Koffler producing under their Killer Films banner. Principal photography began on January 14, 2019, in Cincinnati, Ohio.

William 'Bucky' Bailey, showing the PFOA-induced "One nostril and eye defect" discussed in the film as having been found in DuPont's own (and previously hidden) 1981 pregnancy study, appears as himself in the film. His mother Sue worked on the Teflon line in Dupont's facility.

Other individuals affected by the environmental catastrophe in Parkersburg and who appear in the film include Darlene and Joe Kiger, Crystal Wheeler and Amy Brode (Wilbur Tennant's daughters), Jim Tennant (Wilbur's brother), and Sarah and Rob Bilott. Teddy, Charlie and Tony Bilott (Sarah and Rob's sons) also appear in the film.

Release
The film premiered at the Walter Reade Theater on November 12, 2019. It entered limited release in the United States on November 22, 2019, before going wide on December 6, 2019. The film was released on Netflix in Canada on April 1, 2022, and quickly became the number one movie on Netflix Canada on April 2, 2022.

Box office
Dark Waters has grossed more than $11.1 million in the United States and Canada, and $11.9 million in other countries, for a worldwide total of over $23.1 million.

In its opening weekend the film made $102,656 from four theaters, a per-venue average of $25,651. It expanded to 94 theaters the following weekend, making $630,000. The film went wide in its third weekend of release, making $4.1 million from 2,012 theaters, and then made $1.9 million in its fourth weekend.

Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 90% based on 239 reviews, with an average rating of 7.40/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Dark Waters powerfully relays a real-life tale of infuriating malfeasance, honoring the victims and laying blame squarely at the feet of the perpetrators." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 73 out of 100, based on 38 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale, while those at PostTrak gave it an average 3.5 out of 5 stars, with 60% saying they would definitely recommend it to a friend.

Economic impact
The DowDuPont breakup earlier in the year spun off a new DuPont company that continued to lose value throughout the second half of 2019 as investors grew concerned about the potential liabilities related to the old DuPont's fluoropolymer products. When Dark Waters was released on November 12, DuPont's stock price dropped even further by 7.15 points from 72.18 to 65.03. While the portfolio is now a part of Chemours and the companies settled the public health lawsuits referenced in the film, Chemours sued DuPont, alleging that the former parent company saddled it with onerous liabilities when it failed to prepare financial projections in good faith. Chemours estimated that it would need to pay over $200 million to address environmental damages in North Carolina caused by another PFAS manufacturing facility in that region. (The prior settlement in both West Virginia and Ohio cost $671 million, which was split between the two companies.)

DuPont CEO Marc Doyle, executives, and investors argued in internal statements that much of the movie was not based in fact and DuPont was misconstrued to fit the role of the enemy. According to Doyle, limited public statements were made because "in a situation like this, it just doesn't do you much good to fight it out in the public eye. That would just drive more and more attention to it." Executive chairman Ed Breen would not comment on whether DuPont would take legal action in response to the movie, but he did tell investors, "Obviously, we have a lot of legal folks [that] have been looking at this." Many of the executives with whom this movie draws fault still work, or recently worked, at DuPont. 3M saw little to no change in its stock price the day of the film's release, but it was already experiencing a "difficult year" from "potential liabilities due to possible litigation over previous production of PFAS." 3M's stock price closed at 256.01 on January 28, 2018, and by December 1, 2019, it had fallen to 168.27.

Accolades
Many outlets felt the film was snubbed by the 92nd Academy Awards and 77th Golden Globe Awards, as it did not receive any nominations at either ceremony.