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Dark Waters (2019)

"The system is rigged. They want us to believe that it'll protect us, but that's a lie. We protect us. We do. Nobody else. Not the companies, not the scientists, not the government. Us."

#dark waters #nathaniel rich #mario correa #matthew michael carnahan #todd haynes #mark ruffalo #anne hathaway #tim robbins #bill pullman

Dark Waters (2019)

Directed by Todd Haynes

Cinematography by Edward Lachman

The system is rigged. The want us to believe that it'll protect us, but that's a lie. We protect us. We do. Nobody else. Not the companies, not the scientists, not the government. Us.

Dark Waters, Todd Haynes (2019)

#Todd Haynes #Mario Correa #Matthew Michael Carnahan #Mark Ruffalo #Anne Hathaway #Tim Robbins #Bill Pullman #Bill Camp #Victor Garber #Mare Winningham #William Jackson Harper #Louisa Krause #Kevin Crowley #Bruce Cromer #Edward Lachman #Marcelo Zarvos #Affonso Gonçalves #2019

"N/A" at LCT Delivers the Wit and the Anger Somewhat Lopsided, But Still With Value

#frontmezzjunkies reviews: #MarioCorrea's new play N/A directed by #DianePaulus w/ #HollandTaylor and #AnaVillafañe @LCTheatre at the #MitziENewhouseTheater #OffBroadway

Ana Villafañe and Holland Taylor in LCT’s N/A, at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Photo by Daniel Rader. The Off-Broadway Theatre Review: Mario Correa’s N/A By Ross “We aren’t here to talk about him,” N states pretty early on in Mario Correa’s new play N/A which recently had its world premiere at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater at Lincoln Center. And we all breathe somewhat a sigh of relief, even though…

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#Ana Villafañe #diane paulus #holland taylor #Mario Correa #off broadway

Dark Waters

(Todd Haynes, 2019)

For anyone familiar with the work of Todd Haynes over the past quarter century and more, his latest might look... Unfamiliar. Certainly nothing like the work of a man who has come to be one of the more distinctive filmmakers in American cinema in recent times. Dark Waters looks far more pedestrian than anything Haynes has done to date, and more worryingly even than that... It is.

Not here something that looks on the surface, via trailers and a plot synopsis like something utterly pedestrian that then upon the watching reveals itself to be something else entirely, no. Dark Waters is indeed pure and simply just a plodding chronicle of one of the most important, enthralling, and almost unbelievable stories of recent times.

While it makes for watchable enough viewing for anybody interested in this sort of whistleblower, legal thriller type of thing, and certainly imparts plenty of much needed information (the veracity of much of which has been called into question by those that stand here accused, impacted by the movies release in ways seemingly far more interesting than the movie itself... Get that non-fiction sequel prepped already) there is almost nothing interesting from either the writing or filmmaking point of view that make this movie worthy of existing as it does, rather it's one of those films where you think maybe they should have just made a documentary given how lightly the movies efforts to really stir up drama are.

On the one hand that's sort of a good thing, you can certainly credit Haynes and co-writers Mario Correa and Matthew Michael Carnahan for attempting to maintain integrity, not conjure up melodramatic thrills where there perhaps were none, and letting the facts do the talking for themselves, but it doesn't do much to make the viewing of this thing especially interesting. Plenty of no thrills procedurals have been crafted in movies over the years with more about them than this, and I find it hard to believe a filmmaker of Haynes’ skill couldn’t have come up with some sort of angle to make it all pop.

Yet while saying that further issues abounded for me in the movie making itself. This film drags almost interminably. It's another quality that some may see as praiseworthy given the movie plays out over the better part of 20 years (with a random prologue for some reason) and the pace of the movie certainly suggests you've been sitting there watching for the better part of 20 years too as it starts to surgically plow through the years one scene at a time. When Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave failed to conjure up that same feeling it got plenty of criticism for it, but the issue here is that I'm not sure it was entirely intentional (especially given the most minimal almost non existent efforts to age up the principle players involved, or any significant effort on any of their parts to seem any older towards the end than they were in the beginning via performance) and is more just a case of inert filmmaking.

The strongly assembled cast don’t really help matters either. Mark Ruffalo, Anne Hathaway, Tim Robbins, Bill Camp, Victor Garber, Mare Winningham, William Jackson Harper, all present, and none of them doing anything resembling their best work. Robbins and Garber I liked a fair deal, but their roles are too small to save things, Bill Camp’s accent could go down in history for all the wrong reasons, and Mark Ruffalo front and centre seemed to me, sadly to say, on autopilot.

I really do think unless you’re absolutely in love with him or with the type of film that this is you’d be better off seeking out alternative non-fiction accounts of the story here told, which is certainly an important one, but in my eyes not presented by anyone involved in a way that does it any sort of justice. Hopefully it’s just a quick cash grab on Haynes’ part and he’ll be back to normal the next time out.