Far From the Madding Crowd

 SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

In Far from the Madding Crowd (1967), based on the Thomas Hardy novel, we have one of the themes that Hardy explored in other works, and that is the role of fate. While some see this concept as romantic, Hardy shows how destructive it can be as well as how it upends the notion of free will. “Madding” can mean maddening or frenzied. Since this story takes place in a pastoral area, the word in the title may indicate irony, because the idealistic connotation of the rural area conflicts with the tumultuous happenings in the tale.

The opening shots are of the countryside, and they depict the seaside and unspoiled land. Some of the names in the story reflect the rural area and the personality of the characters. Alan Bates plays Gabriel Oak, which points to a sturdy fellow who has an angelic first name, the one which refers to a heavenly heralder. He raises sheep and we first see him call one of his sheep herding dogs, Boxey, “mad,” which is a foreshadowing. (Sheep may also be a religious reference to the “Lamb of God,” a sacrificial symbol).

Bathsheba Everdene (Julie Christie) lives close to Gabriel. Her name is also a reference to a Biblical person. Bathsheba in the holy text was involved in an adulterous relationship with King David, later married him, gave birth to Solomon and was a powerful person herself. The implication is that she is passionate and strong. Her last name could signify a person who is rooted in nature and is an earth mother character capable of resilience.

Gabriel brings a lamb to Bathsheba’s home as a gift, but his true purpose is to ask to marry her. Bathsheba was staying with her aunt, Mrs. Hurst (Alison Legatt). He pleads his case in the pragmatic way of a working man. She says she does not belong to any man, which indicates her independence. Later she shows her pride by saying he wasn’t good enough for her. She tells him she can’t marry him because she doesn’t love him despite his declaration of love for her.

We get a shot of Gabriel and his sheep from high above which suggests how small his life is compared to the viewpoint of the cosmos. At night, Boxey goes wild and drives all of Gabriel’s sheep out of their pen and over a cliff to their deaths. There is no explanation for the dog’s irrational behavior. The act ties in with Hardy’s view of unfathomable fate where anything can happen, and people are powerless to stop what is beyond their control. Garbriel shoots his dog who represents the whims of predetermination. However, Gabriel finds solace when he thanks God that he’s “not married.” He promised Bathsheba that he would be a man of means, and now he can’t deliver on that claim.

Gabriel walks past a group of soldiers and this image hints at how the universe throws people together even though they don’t realize the connection at the time. Sergeant Frank Troy (Terence Stamp) encounters Fanny (Prunella Ransome), his lover, on the road with his fellow soldiers. He promised to marry her and says she’ll come when he calls for her. His military position and attitude present him as a man who wants to be in control, which is difficult to do from Hardy’s perspective.

Gabriel goes to the town to look for employment as a bailiff, a person who manages large farms. He meets William Boldwood (Peter Finch), another character with a meaningful name implying strength and a connection to the land. He owns a large property and says he’s looking for a shepherd instead. When Gabriel meets another man Gabriel says he is a shepherd. The man says he wants a bailiff. Poor Gabriel can’t seem to win so far. Others view him as a failure because he owned his own farm and now must work for someone else.

Gabriel gets a ride in a wagon with a couple of men, one of whom is named Poorgrass (John Barrett). We have another name of significance, here suggesting that in the farmland, he is low on the social ladder. The conversation reveals that Bathsheba inherited a property from her uncle. The men comment on Bathsheba’s vanity and the foolishness of leaving a farm to a female. Is she self-absorbed, or are men not capable of accepting a willful woman in charge?

Gabriel jumps off the wagon when he hears people in distress. There is a fire (another force that warps human plans) and Gabriel helps them fight the blaze. He saves the hay ricks, showing he defies life’s obstacles. It turns out to be Bathsheba’s farm, and she hires him. Has fate driven him off his own land so that he can reunite with Bathsheba?

Bathsheba shows how to take command when she fires the bailiff for stealing barley. Like Gabriel, she tries to meet the challenges life throws at her. She decides to take on the job of bailiff to ensure honesty in handling the farm’s affairs. Men try to take advantage of her because of her gender and complain that she isn’t assuming the traditional role of the submissive female.

She has just taken over control of the farm and reviews those men who worked the land for her uncle. One is named Cain, who they call Cainy (Freddie Jones), because his mother was confused as to whether the brother killer in the Bible was Cain or Abel. It’s another small example of the whims of the universe as he is a person judged on his name just because of a misunderstanding. To add to the cruelty attributed to existence is Andrew Randle (Andrew Robertson) who stutters and is thought to be cursed. Other names are Temperance (Harriet Harper) and Soberness (Denise Coffey), assumed by Bathsheba to be women since the film implies these are attributes that men do not adhere to. One of the workers says those two females are “yielding” women, implying they are promiscuous. Bathsheba has feminist attributes and dismisses that slander and the man who uttered it. She concludes her staff interviews by saying, “Don’t anyone suppose because I’m a woman, I don’t know the difference between bad goings-on and good. I’ll be up before you’re awake, I shall be afield before you’re up, and I shall have breakfasted before you’re afield. In short, I shall astonish you.” Quite a boast, bordering on hubris, which the Greeks condemned for being presumptuous as a mere mortal.

Boldwood visits Bathsheba’s farm. He is rather abrupt, lacking social attributes, banging on her door without even getting off his horse, and is curt in his speech. He tells a servant he is there to offer aid to the new owner of the farm. Is he being courteous or assuming a woman needs help? Bathsheba is intrigues by the man. Liddy (Fiona Walker) says he “is married to his farm.” Temperance says, “There’s no woman can touch him, miss. ‘Tis said he has no passionate parts.” Liddy says Boldwood was courted by “sixes and sevens,” which means in a confusing way. (So much for the youth acting like saying 6 - 7 is a modern notion. I remember people using it when I was young). They say many women have tried to win his affections but failed. Perhaps Bathsheba sees the man as a challenge. She finds a Valentine’s Day card at the farm and sends it to Boldwood.

It turns out that Fanny works at the Everdene farm, which shows how the universe intertwines destinies. Troy and Fanny are to be married but when the day arrives, Fanny mistakenly shows up at the wrong church. Fanny learns of her mistake but is too late. Troy is enraged for being made a “fool” of, which shows he is prideful, too. The whims of fate again torture individuals.

Bathsheba comments to Gabriel that the sheep herd is doing well. He says they have been lucky, an ironic statement given the theme of the story. She corrects him by saying, “I’ve been lucky.” Her words show her ego and remind Gabriel that she is in charge. It is a selfish statement which does not allow for Gabriel’s hard work and points to how she does not wish to share her luck.

After Bathsheba impresses Boldwood at the marketplace by avoiding a swindle by opportunistic businessmen, we later get a glimpse of Boldwood’s sterile existence. He eats in his home alone, except for his dogs. He stares at the clocks over his fireplace as they tick away his emotionally empty life. He throws the valentine into the fireplace fire. But passion has gripped him now. He visits Bathsheba and proposes marriage. However, his idea of marriage is old-fashioned as he says he will take care of everything when they merge the farms. She is sorry for her carelessness in sending the card and tells him she doesn’t love him. He is obsessed with her now. Here a simple whimsical act wreaks havoc on another person.

Bathsheba confronts a jealous Gabriel about her going off with Boldwood. The two verbally spar as she reminds him of his place below hers. He criticizes her for playing with Boldwood’s affections to satisfy her own “vanity.” She fires him, the penalty for his accurate honesty.

Then the sheep become ill. Bathsheba summons Gabriel who says he will not be ordered to do a favor. Bathsheba reluctantly sends a message asking him not to abandon her. He arrives and releases toxic gas from each sheep, showing his worth. She is grateful now and asks if he will stay. After being treated decently now, Gabreil remains on the farm.

At an outside feast for the farm workers Poorgrass sings the song “Seeds of Love.” Its lyrics talk of being unlucky in love and being beaten down, but then experiencing rebirth, like seeds growing into flowers. The song shows the need for resilience in a challenging world. The words could apply to the lives of Bathsheba and Gabriel. Boldwood shows up at the gathering. Bathsheba asks Gabriel to relinquish his seat at the table so that Boldwood can sit down. The action could suggest that Boldwood is displacing Gabriel for Bathsheba’s attention. In private she tells Boldwood that she will give him an answer by harvest time about his marriage proposal. Gabriel warned her about toying with the man’s feelings, but she is still keeping him hanging on.

Bathsheba encounters Troy at night in the fields. Her skirt gets caught on his boot spur, a suggestion of an animal getting caught in a trap. It is another accident involuntarily drawing people into each other’s lives. He is flirtatious and praises her beauty. Afterwards she stares into a mirror and smiles, enjoying seeing her image and the compliments she received. It is a narcissistic image.

We switch to an interesting scene that contains a beehive. It produces sweet honey, but the sting of the bees must be avoided. It could be a metaphor for the joys and torments of life. Bathsheba is tending to the hive when Troy appears. He says that beneath Bathsheba’s beauty there can be pain, which is true in this story. He, like Gabriel and Boldwood, declares his love for her immediately. She dismisses the notion of love at first sight in a sort of defiance of how emotion can best reason.

Living up to her last name, Everdene, Bathsheba runs in the countryside as if she belongs to nature. Troy shows up and demonstrates how a sword is used. Interestingly, he labels the moves after farming harvesting methods, meshing his background to hers. The sword is a longstanding phallic symbol. He wants to use her as a model for the enemy. She seems frightened and he says if she is afraid, he can’t “perform,” which has a sexual connotation. She is aroused by his swordsmanship which is exciting in its technique and its danger. He concludes his exhibition by kissing her and she submits willingly.

The tables are turned now as it is Bathsheba who yearns for the man. At first, she’s at 6’s and 7’s about Troy, saying to the female servants she hates him but doesn’t want to hear anything negative about him. She tells Liddy that she has fallen for Troy and doesn’t want to believe the negative stories about him. His reputation with the ladies precedes him. He’s the attractive bad boy who creates excitement.

He is absent for a few days which makes her want him more. She finds him on the beach where a man is selling provocative paintings of exotic nudes and violent rituals. The veneer of respectability starts to fall away when passion stirs. As they talk, we only hear the roar of the ocean which implies crashing primal urges in her. We don’t need words since she shows animated pleading with him along with crying. He is in charge and he exhibits distant amusement at the conquering effect the soldier, in his uniform, has on her. Before them appear older men and a woman in formal attire, their restrained appearance contrasting with the younger passionate couple.

Boldwood feels tortured as Bathsheba rides her wagon back and forth before his farm as she was supposed to inform him of her decision about his marriage proposal. Boldwood confronts Troy with a deal. He wants the soldier to marry Fanny and Boldwood will enrich him. Troy is sadistic as he tells Boldwood to watch how he kisses Bathsheba so he can learn about women. Boldwood’s only unselfish concern is that Bathsheba is happy and is willing to make the same deal if Troy will marry her. Troy adds a final blow by announcing he and she are already married.

Not only Boldwood suffers from watching these two being married. Gabriel must also endure her joined to a disreputable person. Troy parties irresponsibly as he spreads his carelessness by getting the other male workers drunk. It falls to the sturdy Gabriel Oak with the help of the strong Bathsheba to save the farm’s haystacks from a destructive storm. Nature is always a contrary force that can wreck the plans of people.

Boldwood says to Gabriel after the storm that damage to his own farm was due to being distracted by his preoccupation with Bathsheba. He says he will “not give up” his will to continue working despite how much Bathsheba has hurt him. He seems to be trying to convince himself of his endurance and to recapture his pride.

The same flamboyance that made Troy seem attractive carries with it a self-indulgence that is disreputable as he gambles away Bathsheba’s money. Troy finds a pregnant Fanny hiding in the farm stable. He still has feelings for her and promises to help her. When he goes inside the house there is a shot from Troy’s point of view, and he sees the elaborate clock device he bought for Bathsheba. There is also another clock chiming. The references to clocks in the film are a reminder of life passing by inexorably. There is no turning the back the clock to change the past and there is no slowing it down to avoid future events that may be unfortunate.

Troy wants money from Bathsheba to help Fanny, but he says it’s for gambling. Bathsheba is hurting from the disappointment in their marriage. He says romance ends when marriage occurs. Her idealism leads to disenchantment, but she still yearns for the excitement she felt initially.

Fanny dies in childbirth, but there is no mention of the death of her baby. As a former worker on the farm, Bathsheba has the coffin stay temporarily at the house. She begins to suspect the relationship between Fanny and Troy. She opens the coffin and sees the dead infant. She knows now that Troy was intimately involved with Fanny. Troy shows up and, despite everything. Bathsheba believes that through her own will she can get Troy to forsake feelings for Fanny. But the film shows that personal wishes are often stunted by the universe’s plans. Troy is devastated by the loss of Fanny and his child. He is harsh when he tells Bathsheba that Fanny means more to him dead than Bathsheba ever did or does now.

Those crushing words send Bathsheba into retreat to the woods for sanctuary, where her last name implies is her true home. She hears a child reciting a prayer that implores God to save all from works of “darkness.” It is the plight of humans to look for salvation when all seems lost. Troy prepares a lovely gravesite for Fanny only to have it washed away by a storm. The water pours out of the mouth of a demon gargoyle, which implies that the young boy’s prayer may be in vain.

Troy strips off his clothes near the beach and dives into the sea. It appears he has committed suicide by drowning, but it is a deception so that he can escape the confines of his marriage. When Bathsheba hears of the drowning she faints at the marketplace. Boldwood carries her and the image is like the Pieta, as if Boldwood is a parental person, not a possible mate.

Throughout Bathsheba’s grief, Gabriel continues to be the sturdy support his last name of Oak implies. A year passes and Boldwood’s infatuation with Bathsheba continues, pressing her for a promise that in six years when Troy is presumed dead, she will marry him. He continues to try to forge his own destiny despite the odds against him. She says for him to wait until Christmas before she can make the promise. It is what she did before, keeping him hanging on, and he doesn’t wish to learn from his past disappointments.

There is a faire with an image of a young woman balancing herself on a wire. It’s another image of trying to navigate the precariousness of existence. Troy is there in disguise as a comic performer, pretending to be a thief, which in reality he was, stealing Bathsheba’s money and her heart. Boldwood is there with Bathsheba, who seems to recognize Troy’s swordsmanship for a moment. Troy sees his wife and seems to be interested in her again.

At a fancy Christmas party that Boldwood throws for Bathsheba, Gabriel and Bathsheba talk about the promise made earlier to Boldwood. Gabriel tells Bathsheba that marrying someone she doesn’t love is wrong. She now sees marriage as old-fashioned, something her experience has tarnished.

On this night when Bathsheba agrees to marry Boldwood in six years, when he should be at his happiest, when he believes he has control over his destiny, Troy appears demanding the return of his wife. As he drags her away Boldwood shoots and kills Troy in defiance of his fate. Bathsheba also has her hopes dashed as she still loves the man who, despite his faults, still rouses her passion.

Boldwood is in prison and waits for the gallows to end his life. After eight months have passed, Gabriel tells Bathsheba he is leaving for America. He feels that now, when Bathsheba is most “helpless,” he must leave or he will never have freedom from her unrequited hold on him. She later goes to him and urges him to stay. He says he will stay only if when each looks up, they will see the other for the rest of their lives. They get married and seem happy. Perhaps by standing by patiently Gabriel has been able to have the destiny he wanted. However, the ending is not promising. The camera focuses on the elaborate clock that Troy gave to Bathsheba, and there is the figure of a soldier that is part of the instrument. The device suggests that Troy’s memory could spell trouble for the couple as time goes by.

Manchester by the Sea

 SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

Manchester by the Sea (2016), written and directed by Kenneth Lonergan, deals with the impact of the traumatic loss of a family’s children and how that tragedy disrupts any connection to others.

The film begins in the coastal community of Manchester-by-the Sea in the past with Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck, who received the Best Actor Oscar for this role) on a boat with his then eight-year-old nephew Patrick (Ivy O’Brien). The two are playful together, as Lee jokingly says he knows more about life than Patrick’s dad and, thus, would be the one to choose if stranded on an island. The idea of isolation is introduced early here. As it turns out, Patrick starts out with a natural father and a father-figure, but he loses both. The sea suggests freedom but the isolation of being on the water can point to what happens later in the story.

There is a jump to the present in Boston where Lee is working as a handyman at an apartment building. It is winter and it is snowing, presenting a feeling of an unwelcoming environment. Lee’s constant acts of shoveling and filling up a dumpster with trash seem fruitless, like Sisyphus continually rolling his rock uphill. Lee can keep trying to dig himself out of his predicament, but the task is overwhelming to him. There is no feeling of community in this place as the residents seem to not have any social skills, which reflects Lee’s current state of mind. The tenants argue or are sexually inappropriate showing how they do not know how to interact with others, and Lee responds angrily when provoked by them.

This disconnect continues when Lee goes to a bar. A woman spills a drink on him as an awkward attempt at staring a conversation with Lee. Her action demonstrates an inability to connect in a meaningful way. He tries to avoid looking at the woman, indicating his unwillingness to interact with anyone. Two businessmen there appear to be talking about Lee and he accosts them, punching them both. Lee carries with him anger and shame because of his past, and he misdirects that wrath toward others. The Ray Charles song in the background is ironic because he is singing “Oh, what a beautiful morning.”

Lee lives in a basement apartment, alone of course, and its subterranean location shows how he has buried himself physically and emotionally in his withdrawal from life. There is even a sign on the back fence that says, “Keep Out,” which could mirror Lee’s mental state toward others. He has exiled himself from his hometown. But circumstances thrust him out of his personal purgatory in Boston back to Manchester-by-the-Sea. He learns that his brother, Joe (Kyle Chandler) is in the hospital but by the time Lee arrives he finds out from a friend, George (C. J. Wilson) that Joe is dead. Lee has become so numb from his prior trauma that he shows little outward emotion, maintaining his flat affect, common to those with post-traumatic stress disorder. Except for one angry f-bomb, irritability being another characteristic of PTSD, he maintains his distanced appearance. George’s sobbing contrasts with Lee’s stilted reaction. Director/writer Lonergan said that Lee is trying to keep the “walls from caving in,” so he exerts extreme effort not to collapse under the onslaught of his tortured emotions. However, when Lee goes to the morgue to see his dead brother, he does show emotion, hugging Joe’s body and whispering to him. It’s as if Lee is more equipped to connect with the dead than the living. Later, Lee has trouble even talking on the phone to the funeral home to set up arrangements for his brother.

There is a flashback to Joe’s previous hospitalization for congestive heart failure which his wife, Elise (Gretchen Moll), does not take calmly when Dr. Bethany (Ruibo Qian) tells the family that Joe has only five or ten years to live. When the doctor says, “it’s not a good disease,” Joe’s no-nonsense response is “What is a good disease?” The doctor says, “Poison Ivy,” and Lee adds, “Athlete’s foot.” They deal with bad news with humor to lessen the blow, but Elise can’t cope with the situation and leaves, feeling that Joe is not taking the threat seriously.

Another flashback of young Patrick and Lee with Joe shows how Lee would tease his nephew about how there are sharks ready to get at the boy even if he throws a bloody band aid in the water. These scenes show how familiar and at ease Lee and young Patrick were and how their prior relationship contrasts with the tension that exists in the present.

As Lee drives through the frigid Manchester-by-the-Sea he remembers coming back from his happy day on the boat to the warm domestic world of his wife, Randi (Michelle Williams), and his three young children. Randi has a flu-like illness, but Lee wants to be romantic despite that fact, and the two tease each other. The comfort and love are symbolized by the lit fireplace that will, ironically, be the thing that turns Lee’s life into a living hell.

Lee drives to pick up the teenage Patrick (Lucas Hedges) at his school to break the news about his father. He talks to Paul (Paul Meredith), the Assistant Principal, who tells Lee that Patrick is at hockey practice. The conversation between the men is broken up on the cell phone, and when Paul asks about Joe, Lee acts as if his brother is still alive. We have here a scene which stresses the lack of Lee’s ability to deal with another.

That lack of communication shows up again in the scene at the hockey rink. As soon as Patrick sees his usually absent uncle, he knows that there is something wrong with his father. Patrick is like his uncle, and instead of telling his coach (Tate Donovan) what he assumes, he yells at him instead. The camera shows Patrick and Lee talking at a distance, thus stressing Lee’s inability to express himself by the omission of any audible conversation. Even though that distanced conversation continues with his teammates, one of them hugs Patrick. This show of affection toward another living person contrasts with the embrace of a dead person that Lee showed earlier. Both Paul and the coach reveal that Lee is known for his tragic past, and how he may be to blame for what happened.

The inability to connect with another continues into the next scene where Lee and Patrick are in Lee’s car. Patrick can’t say whether he wants to see his father or not as Lee tries to explain how the boy’s father appears. When they get to the hospital, Lee asks Patrick if he wants to go home or see his father. Patrick says, “Let’s just go.” Lee starts to pull the car away and Patrick is angry, because he thought he said, “Let’s just go inside.”

Patrick asks Lee if he could have some friends over, including Patrick’s girlfriend, Silvie (Kara Hayward), to which Lee consents. Lee stays in the kitchen and goes upstairs, maintaining his distance from others. There is an awkward scene when Patrick asks Lee if Sylvie can stay over, and Lee says why is Patrick asking his permission. Lee asks if he should tell his nephew to use a condom. Patrick also asks if they should contact his mother, but Lee says they don’t even know where she is, which tells us how estrangement has widened as time progressed. (A flashback shows Lee and Joe coming back from an outing with young Patrick, and Alise is passed out, half-naked on the couch, with a bottle of booze next to her. Perhaps Joe spent more time with his brother and son, and not enough with his wife). There are silences between talking, as if both are trying to figure out what to say. Patrick hugs Lee, who seems stiff, as the hugging motif continues, showing Lee’s inability to show affection for the living. Patrick appears to be used to having an adult parent and Lee is at a loss as to how to fill that role. He later has difficulty typing an email to his mother, another moment of a failure to connect.

On the way to the lawyer’s office to hear Joe’s will, Patrick tries to reach out to his uncle by starting up a conversation with Lee about rock music. But Lee shuts it down by saying all the bands sound alike to him. Patrick does a quick shake of his head and lets out a short sigh as if in frustration with Lee’s inability to engage with him. At the lawyer’s office, the attorney surprises Lee by telling him that Joe chose his brother to be Patrick’s guardian. Joe set aside funds to take care of his son and for Lee’s moving back to Manchester-by-the-Sea. Lee is adamant about how he can’t carry out what the will says, but realizes that Joe didn’t discuss the matter with him because Joe knew Lee would have not agreed to its terms. It’s as if in death, Joe was trying to bring Lee home to reconnect with Patrick, and thus give him back some of the family he lost. Lee comes to the hard realization that he has no choice but to take care of Patrick.

While in the lawyer’s office we discover through a flashback the event that devastated Lee and Randi’s life. He was having a gang of his friends over one night and they were drinking. Randi slept downstairs and the kids were upstairs. The guys were loud and she told them to leave. Lee joked with his friends as they departed, but this fun time turned to tragedy. Lee, drunk and high on drugs, walked to the grocery store for more beer since he knew he couldn’t drive. He later told the police that he started a fire in the fireplace because it was cold upstairs, and his wife’s sinuses wouldn’t tolerate the forced hot air of the heater. He was trying to be conscientious, but forgot to put the fireplace screen in place. He says that a log must have rolled out and set the house ablaze. Randi was able to get out, but the children died in the fire. The police said it was a mistake, but the odds of what happened were so unlikely that Lee was not considered to be criminally negligent. At the police station Lee’s guilt is depicted as being overwhelming and, because he wasn’t charged with a crime, he wanted to put himself out of his misery. So, he grabbed a cop’s gun and tried to shoot himself, but the policemen restrained him. The bleak cold and snowing that the camera reveals mirrors Lee’s emotional landscape.

Lee is furious at having been placed in a parenting situation with Patrick when he is sure that is the last thing he is qualified to do. His anger at himself is misdirected at others. He is harsh toward Patrick when the boy jokes about the next stop might be the orphanage. He nastily berates Patrick about his desire to take care of the family boat, telling him he can’t maintain it, and is loudly hostile when a passerby comments sarcastically that Lee is showing “great parenting.”

Lee and Patrick meet with George about the boat. Lee does not want to return to Manchester-by-the Sea, the scene of where he considers his crime took place, so he blurts out that Patrick will be moving to Boston. Because he feels that he is unreliable, Lee wants to relinquish as much responsibility as possible, asking if George knows someone who will buy the boat. He goes so far as to put George on the spot by asking if he would like to be Patrick’s guardian, even though George already has kids to take care of. During this scene the conversations overlap, creating a cacophony of sound that furthers the theme of miscommunication. After leaving George, Patrick reveals that he has been emailing his mother after she contacted him, and discovered she lives in Connecticut. Lee is caught between what he wants, which is to withdraw from family concerns, and what he should do, which is not to have Patrick’s mother have custody of the young man.

After going to the funeral home, Patrick is initiated into the depressing realities of the funeral process. He learns that his father is being kept in a freezer until the ground thaws for the burial, and he says that “freaks him out.” He has no idea of the undertaking process and wants to get a small steam shovel to bury his dad quickly. Lee has no patience or empathy and becomes irritated instead of consoling his nephew about the youth’s concerns.

Lee brings Patrick to his other girlfriend’s house for practice with a rock band. Her name is Sandy (Anna Baryshnikov), and her mother is Jill (Heather Burns). Because of his alienated state of mind, Lee would rather stay outside in the cold car than go inside the house to pick up Patrick. Jill invites him in for dinner but of course Lee refuses.

Back at Joe’s house, Lee gets a call from his now ex-wife, Randi, who asks if she can come to Joe’s funeral. She offers condolences, but then drops a bomb on Lee, saying she is ready to have a child with her new husband. Randi has been able to move on and now is starting a new family, while the only companion that Lee has is his guilt. The church scene is shot in slow motion, which makes Lee’s suffering seem unrelenting as he sees Randi with her husband there.

At the reception at George’s house afterwards, the crowded, noisy room interferes with George calling to his wife about the food. They can’t hear each other, another example of the verbal disconnect between people. Back at Joe’s house, Patrick talks about all his connections in Manchester-by-the-Sea and doesn’t understand why Lee can’t be a janitor there since he has no ties in Boston. Because Lee is unable to talk about his feelings, he is unable explain that he can’t live in a place that holds nothing but misery for him.

Patrick opens the refrigerator and wrapped frozen meat falls out. He begins to become extremely agitated and slams the freezer as packages fall to the floor. We know that he is thinking about his father, but Lee is so detached he feels helpless trying to understand Patrick’s behavior. Patrick finally unleashes his feelings and cries. There is finally communication between them when Patrick connects his actions to hating the thought of his dad being kept in a freezer. Lee stays with the boy until he falls asleep, which is what a parent would do for an upset child.

A flashback shows the devastated Lee moving into a spare basement apartment after, we assume, he has broken up with Randi. Joe says they must get him furniture, but Lee yells at Joe to leave him alone. Probably, Lee doesn’t feel as if he deserves to have a comfortable home. But Joe quietly gets his brother to have some furniture in his new surroundings.

In the present, Lee concedes that Patrick can stay in the town until the end of the school year, and he can work with George on the boat in the summer. Patrick is not placated and there is again overlapping dialogue as they argue over how long it takes to get from Manchester-by-the-Sea to where Lee lives. They can’t even agree on the distance between two places.

Lee compromises, gathers his things in Boston, and moves back to Manchester-by-the-Sea through the summer. He goes around town looking for work, but people turn him down because they too feel he is responsible for the deaths of his children. It appears that it is impossible for him to live in this place because of his past. He looks out of the window in Joe’s room and suddenly punches his fist through the window. He hurts himself because of his anger for having to be back in the town, but he may be punishing himself for what he feels he deserves for his past actions. When Patrick asks what happened to his hand, Lee says, “I cut it.” Not much of an explanation. Patrick stresses this lack of communication by sarcastically saying, “for a minute there I didn’t know what happened.” Further breakdown in connecting to another occurs when Patrick’s mother, Elise, calls, and Lee can’t get himself to say anything before hanging up. He is most likely unable to deal with anything connected to the loss of his brother.

Lee continues his lack of talking by not telling Patrick his mother called. Patrick says she emailed him and she is sober and wants Patrick to meet her and her fiancé. Patrick says he can live with Eloise. Typically, Lee says he doesn’t want to talk about it. But, he is willing to call her back and if she sounds okay, he will let Patrick meet his mother. He is stuck chauffeuring Patrick around and suggests a driver’s education course, but Patrick says his father didn’t want him driving until he is seventeen. Lee is still torn between what’s best for himself and his nephew.

Patrick says he wants Lee to spend some time with Sandy’s mother, Jill, who he says is attracted to Lee. Patrick wants some time so he can have sex with his girlfriend while Lee is with her mom. Lee, reluctant as ever to be social, agrees, since Patrick pleads with him so he feels he should help him out. But he is so lacking in any social skills at this point that Jill finds the time with Lee unbearable. Patrick criticizes Lee on the drive home for not being able to even participate in small talk, that is how dysfunctional Lee has become. (It is humorous that Patrick is upstairs half-naked with Sandy, but trips over her doll house, which points to how these young people are caught in that awkward stage between childhood and adulthood).

On the way to Elise’s house Lee and Patrick continue their inability to connect even down to the smallest detail. They can’t even confirm the address. Elise looks clean and sober as she introduces her fiancé, Jeffrey (Matthew Broderick). Lee leaves and they have dinner. There is a religious painting over the fireplace. They say grace before the meal, and Elise says she didn’t hear Patrick say “Amen.” Elise seems nervous, as Patrick reports to Lee on the ride home. He also comments that Jeffrey is “very Christian,” suggesting that she depended on religious strictness to keep her addiction in line. Lee acts positive, saying Elise is sober and not in a mental institution. Patrick, who wanted to break ties with Lee, does a reversal because of how uptight his mothers’ home is. He accuses Lee of trying to get rid of him. Jeffrey sends an email to Patrick saying that they can’t rush Elise into her son joining the household and that all future communications must go through him. His message shows how fragile Elise’s sobriety is, and Patrick slams his laptop closed, which shows how his hope that his mother was fit for him to live with can’t be realized.

Patrick is sad because of what happened with his mom, so Lee makes an attempt at empathy by asking what Patrick’s friends are doing or if he wants to invite Sandy over. It’s not enough to raise Patrick’s spirits, but the boy admits that at least Lee is now trying. Earlier Lee refused to get a loan for a new engine for Joe’s boat. Now, he eyes Joe’s rifle collection and says they could be worth enough to pay for a new boat motor. Patrick smiles, admitting that is a good idea. Lee is finally successful in reaching out to his nephew and bonding with him through this act. He also gives some free time for Sandy and Patrick to be together, knowing how important it is to his nephew. When they put in the new motor and the boat is sailing Lee smiles, maybe for the first time in the present. The shot mirrors the opening when he felt at home and at ease on the waters of his town.

Lee encounters his ex-wife, Randi, on a walk. This scene shows the writing, acting, and directing at its best as the two struggle to have a conversation as the trauma due to the loss of their children still devastates them. Randi has her new baby with her, which adds to Lee’s emptiness. As they talk, they appear to be on either side of a divide, Randi is on the left side of a wall’s edge and Lee stands on the other. The image stresses the emotional barrier that separates them. Randi seems to want to bridge that separation by asking if they might have lunch together. Randi begins to cry as she says she is sorry for horrible things she said to Lee at the time of their loss and admits that she still loves him. She admits that her heart is still broken, but she represents the type of person who deals with that damage by trying to continue living some version of a meaningful life. Lee remains in anguish, saying “there is nothing there” for him to hold onto that could allow him to connect to Randi. It’s as if her offer confronts him with how much he has lost, and he must leave to avoid that feeling.

That sense of profound loss fuels Lee’s anger at himself and he again vents it by attacking others as he gets into a barroom brawl. George rescues him after Lee is hurt and takes him to George’s house. There he cries, releasing emotion that he has suppressed for so long. Once he experiences feelings again, Lee is able to give his nephew some affectionate pats on the shoulder.

Lee starts cooking something on the stove and then takes a nap. He dreams of his two very young daughters who ask him why he can’t see that they are burning. He wakes up to the sound of the fire alarm which was triggered by the burning food on the range. It’s as if Lee is unable to escape the fire that burned up his life years ago.

Lee talks things over with George. Two of his children will be leaving home so Lee sets it up for George and his wife to adopt Patrick. He will stay with them until he’s eighteen. Patrick will then have his father’s house and do with it what he wants. This way he will be able to stay in his hometown. Lee secured a handyman job elsewhere. Patrick wants his uncle to stay in Manchester-by-the-Sea, but Lee tells him, “I can’t beat it.” Lee finally communicates with Patrick about his pain and then hugs the boy, showing affection that he has not shared for so long. He has made plans that he knows will be the best for his nephew, and knows that he can’t live in the place that haunts him.

When the ground is warm enough they can bury Joe. Lee is looking for an apartment that has an extra room for Patrick if he wants to visit, Patrick doesn’t say anything except he will not be looking to go to college in the city. He probably is still not thrilled about his uncle leaving. Lee is bouncing a ball he found outside an ice cream shop and the two sort of have a catch, like a father and a son.

The last scene mirrors the first one, as Lee and Patrick fish on the boat. This time it is quiet, with no teasing, but even though they are not audibly communicating, it is still comforting for the two of them to be together.

The next film is The Breakfast Club.

Silkwood

SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

Silkwood is a 1983 film which Mike Nichols directed based on a screenplay by Nora Ephron and Alice Arlen. It is based on a true story but has the same warning that the fictional The China Syndrome contained about the possible dangers of nuclear power. This movie stresses how those in charge can control, invalidate, and maybe even eliminate those far down on the capitalistic food chain. However, the main character here is not some exemplary hero, since her many flaws are on display. The movie suggests that one’s background does not invalidate a person’s exposing an injustice, and the voice of the less powerful should not be silenced.

The opening shot reveals a rural countryside and a car approaching a street sign showing the distance to Crescent and Oklahoma City. (I find it preferable when a director does not put titles to show a location but makes the revelation part of the story). Banjo music plays adding a country-western soundtrack to match the visuals. The old car riding along the road towards the camera points to a lack of affluence here. The three people in the automobile are the principal characters: Karen Silkwood (Meryl Streep, in one of her numerous Oscar nominations, here for Best Actress); Drew Stephens (Kurt Russell); and Dolly Pelliker (Cher, nominated for Best Supporting Actress). They work at a nuclear power plant owned by the Kerr-Magee company. The film (which takes place in 1974) starkly contrasts the average people living in a natural setting with this high tech and potentially dangerous facility that may be a threat to the area in which it stands.

Men in dress suits walk above the local employees on a catwalk, which denotes their superior positions removed from those below. Karen works with others, including Morgan (Fred Ward), who tell stories about the supernatural power of prayer, predictions by psychic Jeane Dixon, and freakish physical accomplishments in a place where science dominates. Karen and the others are mixing plutonium and uranium in a glove box to make radioactive pellets. The plant manager asks Karen to explain the process to a group of trainees. Since she has her back to them, she grins to her fellow workers, which shows us that what they do has become routine for them. The suppressed laughter and the fact that they chew gum suggest that they have a dislike for anything that sounds intellectually pretentious. When one of the trainees asks the manager conducting the tour about the dangers of the radioactive material, he says it’s like being out in the sun, which can be dangerous if one isn’t careful. His comparison is very flawed considering how much more lethal the exposure to these materials can be, and immediately demonstrates the company’s use of deception to downplay the risk of being around radioactive substances. 

After the group moves away, Karen has gum stuck on her face. She calls Wesley (David Strathairn) over and jokingly says she needs the help of a “trained technician” to help her remove it, again showing how they do not take themselves too seriously. At lunchtime, Karen asks for permission to get time off to see her children, so we know she doesn’t have custody, raising questions about her character. She is chastised because she wants to leave without monitoring her radiation level, which she apparently often forgets to do, suggesting carelessness on Karen’s part. 

In the lunchroom, male workers sitting with Drew talk about a rumor that there was a leak in a truck carrying radioactive material, and they say the vehicle was “cooked.” Also, based on past experiences, they say the men on the truck probably were not protected from exposure. One man wonders how they are going to safely get rid of all this toxicity. Drew talks about shooting the stuff into space or to the moon. The question of the problems associated with nuclear energy come up, but the solutions seem extreme or nonexistent. Karen circulates around the room and even flirts with Winston (Craig T. Nelson), a new x-ray technician in the Metallography Department, even though she just told her boyfriend, Drew, that she “hates” his type. She grabs the sandwich of another worker. She approaches foreman Hurley (Bruce McGill) to ask for the weekend off, but she has waited too close to the end of the week to make her request, Along with not checking her exposure, what happens in this scene shows Karen is someone who doesn't like to play by the rules. 

As Karen and her fellow employees gear up for the rest of the day’s work, she asks for someone to cover her weekend shift, but the others are busy. A loud alarm goes off, and it is just another in a series of tests. But, Wesley is suspicious, saying that the company says it’s a test, but someone probably was just “fried.” Gilda Schultz (E. Katherine Kerr) says that they have a number of tests, but don’t go through the “drills.” Without that preparation, she asks, “If this was a real airborne contamination, how we’re supposed to get out of here?” Morgan says cynically that they will not do the drills because it would slow down production. These people are just trying to make a living, but they do have their concerns. It seems they are worried that if they become vocal about the safety issues, they will be labeled troublemakers, and they may lose their jobs. Karen wishes selfishly that if there was a leak, the plant would shut down, and she could visit her kids. Gilda shows her generosity by agreeing to cover for Karen. 

Sometimes a chance occurrence can change the course of a life. According to IMDb, Meryl Streep said that Mike Nichols told her the movie is about people who were metaphorically asleep, but then something happened that caused them to wake up. In the film, Karen has her consciousness raised. This understanding starts at the end of this day, as Karen notices that men with torches are dismantling a truck. A guard comes by and she asks what is going on. The man just tells her to go away. When a person refuses to answer a harmless question, it means someone is trying to hide something. Based on the lunch conversation, the company is covertly destroying the contaminated truck. 

Drew and Karen are in their bedroom the next day. There is a large Confederate flag hung above the bed, so we can guess at the occupants’ political orientation. These are not left-wing environmental radicals that want to bring down corporations. Karen, Dolly and Drew take a trip to see Karen’s children. They cross the border into Texas, where the primary American fuel, oil, is being produced. They raise the windows on the car, and Dolly says the area “Stinks.” Karen says, “That’s home. That’s why I left.” Karen attaches the physical stench to the emotional feeling she has about the state. So far we have encountered dangerous and pollution creating forms of energy. 

Karen again makes the mistake of not following procedures by expecting to take her children to the beach for the weekend without asking the father, Pete Dawson (Ray Baker), who has made other plans for the next two days. He says she can only have their offspring for a few hours. Pete works at an oil field (those two words don’t seem to go together well), so both parents depend on the energy industry for their livelihood. She has two girls and a boy and they ask where their mommy has been, so it appears she has been derelict in her maternal duties. At the restaurant with her three kids she seems flustered in her inability to handle the children, and curses after she told Dolly not to use such words. When they bring the children back, Pete informs Karen that he will be moving farther away, closer to the Mexican border, because oil was found there. 

So, Karen has not been an empowered person in many aspects of her life. She provides another example of this fact on the way back to Oklahoma. She admits that she and Pete were underage and thought they could get married in Louisiana, but were denied permission. However, because they were considered to have a common law marriage, they did have to officially get divorced. This contradiction is not lost on Dolly who says, “Goddamn government fucks you coming and going.” Streep gets to show off her lovely voice as she sings “Amazing Grace.” The words about being saved seem to contradict the reality of her situation at that time. She says that she could have driven off with her children. Drew suggests he sees Karen’s irresponsibility when he asks, “What would you have done with them?” She shrugs and confesses she does not have a clue. It’s the idea of having a family that she likes, but she is not prepared to cope with motherhood. 

Back at work, a male friend of Karen’s, Joe (Will Patton), tells Karen he and other men were “burying” a truck a couple of days prior. The word implies a literal and figurative cover-up. Drew wants to know who the smiling Joe is, and she just says it’s a friend of a friend. But one gets the impression that Karen has been with other men, and Drew, out of jealousy, questions her whenever she speaks to other guys. 

Little details add texture to the story. One woman, Thelma (Sudie Bond), talks about her daughter borrowing her good wig because her child is battling cancer. Right after one feels sympathy for her situation, Thelma then undermines that compassion as she reveals her bigotry when she says they were letting her child die “next to a colored” person.  Gilda talks about going to church and getting sick from a casserole, which just shows everyday happenings that may occur anywhere (although getting sick from tainted food resonates with the idea that many people can be sickened by radiation from the plant). Karen finds out Gilda didn’t have to cover Karen’s shifts because the plant closed down due to contamination right after Karen left work on Friday. Gilda tells Karen that the rumor is that the company wants to blame Karen for the contamination because she wanted to get the weekend off, and had expressed the wish that the facility would shut down. 

Karen along with her fellow employees are now in hazmat gear as others scrub the walls of their work area. The other workers go along with the company line and blame her for the radiation leak in her area. When Karen visits where Drew is working she says she hates that people think she would do something dangerous like cause a toxic leak. He sarcastically tells her to quit and live off of her “savings.” His statement shows how her poverty keeps her, and by implication all the workers there, under the thumb of the company. Quincy (Henderson Forsythe), who is the local union leader, explains the scapegoat policy of the owners who have “to blame somebody, otherwise, it’s their fault.” The company can’t prove Karen is guilty, so instead those in charge spread a poisonous rumor. Quincy’s statement is not only an admission about the reality of the strength of those in power, but also the feeling that it is next to impossible to challenge them. One of the male workers gawks at Karen, and she realizes she is being objectified sexually. She flashes a breast at him to embarrass his adolescent behavior, but she also demonstrates her rule-breaking attitude. Karen’s uninhibited sexual nature is stressed in the next scene when Dolly is cleaning Winston’s office and he tries to put a move on her. She says she is “really not interested,” and that is not an exaggeration since, as we learn later, she is gay. However, she advises him to “try Karen,” which also reflects jealousy on her part concerning Karen’s sexual activity.

Dolly walks out and sees Thelma being rushed to the decontamination unit. Dolly tells Karen, who then runs to be with Thelma as she is washed down. The older woman cries that the sensor alarm went off after she suspected a leak. She has a daughter who is dying of cancer, and Thelma’s wig sitting on the table suggests that she may be joining her child. Earl Lapin (Charles Hallahan), the medical person there, says there was “no internal contamination.” But Thelma points out the man was trained as a veterinarian. It’s not very comforting to know that the company hired someone whose credentials are in doubt. 

Back home, Dolly and Drew joke as Drew says he will have to sell his body to earn enough money to open an auto and live bait shop. She says she’ll give him five dollars for his body and consider it “a charitable donation.” But Karen was rattled by what is happening at the nuclear power plant and aims displaced anger toward them. When Karen says that Thelma might get cancer, Dolly, referring to her janitorial job, says “Dolly Trashbags” is the one who will get the disease. Karen claims that Dolly makes everything about herself. The look on Dolly’s face shows that the remark hurt her. Drew says they all are equally at risk getting sick from the radiation. Outside, Drew asks the in-denial Karen if she is just “waking up” after two years to the risk they take working at the plant. He says sarcastically that they aren’t working with “puffed rice.” He points out that if she is really worried about cancer, she should stop smoking, which the film shows all the characters indulge in. Karen hesitates a minute, as if naively not realizing that health risks are all around her. As they go to bed, there is a shot of Dolly sitting by herself at the kitchen table. That loneliness carries over into the next morning as Dolly sits alone again near the living room window. Karen apologizes for being angry with her. Dolly says she loves Karen, and Karen tells her she loves her, too, but just as a friend. Dolly has clung to Karen and thus put herself in emotional jeopardy even though she has no chance at an intimate relationship.

At work, after having seen what Thelma went through, Karen starts to talk about the conditions they have to deal with. One of the male workers wants to know why Karen is now so interested in their health. She is becoming a responsible adult and is starting to “wake up” to the danger they are in. She feels guilty that she didn’t notice that Thelma wasn’t given a nasal smear to determine internal contamination. When she sees the woman outside, Karen tells Thelma to get the smear, which shows she is now thinking about the welfare of others. She says that she should make sure that they tell Thelma the readings because there are a “lot of liars around here.” She happens to say these words just as Hurley walks by, and he looks at her like she is in trouble. 

Karen helps celebrate Gilda's birthday at work, and the little bit of fun the employees are having dies down as Hurley enters their area (from above, of course, again stressing the powerful position of the boss). He rains on their parade as he complains how they are behind on production and don’t have time for a party. He threatens them with losing their jobs if they take even this small amount of time away from their duties. He is such a joyless company man that he tells Karen she should clean up the cake crumbs after her workday.

Later, Karen performs routine vacuuming after the cleaning of the contaminated area where she works. As she leaves she monitors herself and alarms go off. So, the procedures of the company to make the work area safe are inadequate. Karen now undergoes the humiliating scrubbing that she witnessed Thelma undergoing as the threat has become even more immediate to her. She must bring in urine samples on a regular basis. Back home, Karen recounts a past conversation with her mother who asked how she was taking care of her fingernails. It is a recollection to a time when that simple personal grooming item was important and now seems insignificant given her deadly exposure. She remembers when she was in school and her mother told her to take home economics, and Karen told her the boys were in science class. These seemingly simple words show what roles boys and girls were expected to assume. Even if Karen took science, it was just to meet boys, not find a career. The irony is that she works in a place created by those in the science field, and because corners were cut from the business side of science’s discoveries, she is in danger. Drew quietly says he wishes he could take better care of her, and kisses her, saying he can’t stay away from Karen, even if it risks exposing himself. It is frightening to think that it is literally dangerous to be affectionate toward someone a person cares about. 

Now that the threat has hit home, Karen pulls out information provided by the union that she did not read before, since many people in this location just need a job, and in economically depressed areas, health is put on the back burner when one must cook the food on the front ones. Karen reads to Dolly about how plutonium causes cancer and can be transmitted genetically to children. She reads that it can cause physical and mental defects. Dolly comments humorously that she already has those. It is a funny line, but it also shows how average folks tend to dismiss science in everyday life because it sounds too complicated or could be a threat to regular routines. 

Karen finds out she has been transferred to the Metallography Department, which means she can’t acquire overtime pay until she learns the new job. Her employer exposed Karen to poor safety conditions, and then punished her economically, as if for retribution for her alleged negligence. She must now work with the sleazy Winston. It is his department that checks to make sure that the welds in fuel rods containing radioactive elements are intact. However, Karen happens upon Winston doctoring x-rays, filling in white spots with a dark pen. When she questions him, he says he already checked the welds and they were fine, and he was simply correcting imperfections in the film. Here is another example of the company eliminating safety steps that would fix a dangerous problem because being thorough would result in slowing down lucrative production time. 

To add insult to contaminating injury, the company is trying to get rid of the union. Kerr-Magee obtained enough signatures from workers worried about losing their jobs if they disagreed with their employer to hold a “decertification” vote. Quincy, the union man, says the company is making one and a half billion dollars, which shows that they are raking in the profits with little regard for their employees. He also says that because of a failed workers’ strike in the prior year they lost union members. Karen volunteers to help as she moves toward labor activism. She is assigned to a negotiating committee. Drew warns her that she has to use restraint because her flashing people and cursing them will not go over well when dealing with management. We have the theme here (similar to that other movie about the plight of workers, Norma Rae) that one’s past should not diminish the facts concerning the present. 

Drew and Karen try to suppress giggles when they hear lovemaking sounds coming from Dolly’s room. In the morning they learn that Dolly hooked up with a beautician named Angela (Diana Scarwid), so Dolly’s gay status is out in the open, as opposed to the company’s desire to hide the truth. Dolly, like Karen, breaks the rules of “acceptable” society. Is she capable of evolving by attempting to detach herself from her romantic feelings for Karen, or is she hoping to make Karen jealous? After Dolly and Angela leave, Karen and Drew say there is nothing wrong with Dolly having a gay relationship, but Karen insightfully notes that talking about it means they are allowing discussion where there shouldn’t be any. However, they are not as enlightened as they pretend when they are both a bit shocked when they see Angela moving in with Dolly.

Karen is now, like Norma Rae, very involved in union business. She argues on the phone at home that the company has no right to stop them during their breaks from discussing union activities. Drew walks in, but as soon as he hears what Karen is doing, he turns right around and walks out. He does not like change, like many people, but is also feeling neglected. He is like Norma Rae’s husband played by Beau Bridges, who feels as if he is losing touch with his female companion. Angela, while applying makeup on Dolly, warns Karen about Kerr-Magee because the company is very powerful. She has learned that fact from working on their clients. An angry Drew, not happy about Angela now living there, says Dolly looks like a “corpse.” He then finds out that Angela (an angel of death?) works at the funeral home. So Drew’s comment about Dolly’s appearance takes a dark turn, which is stressed when Angela says she knows, “when a dead person I beautify worked for Kerr-Magee because they all look like they died before they died.” Her chilling comment implies that the nuclear facility drains the life out of the people who ironically are trying to make a living there. 

The foreshadowing of death continues when Angela advises Karen to wear something that will not wrinkle on her plane trip to Washington D.C. to attend a conference. Drew, not feeling comfortable with the presence of death that Angela represents, uses dark humor by telling Karen she can wear a “shroud.” 

In Washington, national union lawyer Paul Stone (Ron Silver) and union leader Max Richter (Josef Sommer) meet Karen, Quincy, and Morgan to prepare them for the meeting with the Atomic Energy Commission. Richter is polite but leaves early because all he is hearing are complaints without evidence of wrongdoing. Karen runs after the union men who have left and mentions about the altered x-ray films of rods that are meant to be shipped to a breeder reactor. Richter points out that defective fuel rods in that type of nuclear device could kill two million people. He wants her to get documentation of the falsification of the radiographs so the union can blow the whistle on the company. Karen is reluctant to go public out of fear of retribution. Karen is now like a character in a Steven Spielberg film, an ordinary person who is in extraordinary circumstances. She must decide whether to accept Richter’s challenge to act as he says the situation constitutes “a moral imperative.” 

The story jumps back to Oklahoma, where Quincy is presenting a slide show of the trip with Karen and Drew in attendance. There are pictures of the Capitol Building and the Lincoln Memorial, idealized symbols of justice which contrast with the actual disregard by the company for the citizens working at the reactor building. There are compromising shots of Karen arm-in-arm with Paul in front of the hotel Karen stayed at, and also of the two sitting very close at a dinner table. Karen and Drew look uncomfortable as they view these slides. On the way home, Karen assures Drew that nobody else knows about her spying for the union, so others are safe from detection. But her actions also leave her more on her own. She repeats the “moral imperative” line to justify what she will try to do. But she has not been moral in her own life, since it appears that she was unfaithful to Drew. His reaction is less visionary and more practical as he sees many people losing their jobs by fighting the company. 

Back home, Drew suggests that if they quit their jobs then the two could go away together. He already earns money as a car mechanic on the side. But she says she can’t leave now. The implication is that she has found a purpose beyond her personal wants. But he tells her he already quit and just wants her to himself. He is basically forcing her to make a choice between her cause or him. She walks away when he says he doesn’t “give a shit” about others, and then he says to his pessimistic, cynical, yet realistic self, “Don’t give me a problem I can’t solve.” Drew then moves out, saying Karen is now like two people, and he is in love with one of them, which is the older version. One could say he should have stayed to support Karen’s cause, but some people are just not cut out for the type of life that demands deep self-sacrifice, sometimes at the expense of loved ones.

There is some suspense when Winston catches Karen looking in one of his desk drawers. She says the company doesn’t allow her to bring in medication so she hid antihistamines there. He says he doesn’t believe her, but he finds a bottle of capsules. She may have planted them there just in case a situation such as this one occurred. At a meeting with Paul and some doctors, the workers learn that a pollen-sized bit of plutonium can cause cancer. The materials the company gave the employees note nothing about the risks of developing anything carcinogenic. Again, the big business kept knowledge a secret for exploitative purposes, and even lied about an acceptable level of exposure which the doctors say there is none. After the meeting, Winston confronts Paul and makes a good point, asking why is the union so concerned now that the company has plans to decertify, and were not trying to protect the health of the workers before? Winston says no matter what happens to the employees, Paul gets to go back to his safe job in Washington. He says that the company is rich enough that they would close the plant to avoid bad publicity and then all the workers would lose their jobs, which is what the practical Drew was telling Karen. Winston however denies the idea that the workers are in any harm since he obviously has been bought off to falsify the x-rays. 

Paul says they should not get too involved romantically, and after he leaves, Karen can’t get in touch with him anymore. She calls to tell him that the union defeated decertification but then describes how much stress she is under. However, the voicemail cuts her off. First the company used her and now so has one of the union representatives. Winston was right about Paul not really caring about its members as individuals but only about the union’s overall organization, similar to the company’s practice. The stress on Karen is evident as there is animosity between Karen and Dolly because of her focus on her local union participation. Karen calls to talk with her children, but she does so after her work shift and union activities are done for the day, so they are always asleep. She feels “alone” now, which is partly due to her own choices. 

Karen escapes her personal problems through her activism at the nuclear plant. Hurley tries to undermine the union by telling Thelma that the union will not allow blood donations for her ailing daughter. At a meeting with Hurley, who keeps delaying any negotiations with the union, he denies he lied to Thelma about the donating of blood. Karen, feeling empowered now, says she has already scheduled a bloodmobile to come to the location. 

Dolly is now feeling depressed because she misses Drew and especially because Angela went back to her husband. Dolly’s character arc mirrors Karen’s as they both try to move forward only to have lovers reject them along the way. She at first blames Angela’s leaving on Karen’s animosity toward her girlfriend. The two escalate their argument because they are both hurting. Dolly says that Drew left because Karen didn’t take care of him, the same way she didn’t meet the needs of her children. That last remark gets at what really is tearing Karen apart. Dolly, who really loves Karen, apologizes and the two sit on a swing on the porch. Karen wonders if Drew was right about quitting and moving away to some place that’s “clean.” That word stresses the toxicity of the place where they work. Dolly, still hoping for Karen's affection, asks if just the two of them can leave together. Karen smiles and shakes her head because she knows she can’t give Dolly what she wants. Dolly knows it, too, and cries. Karen holds Dolly to comfort her, and rocks her, as the two appear like a mother with her child. She even sings Dolly a lullaby.

At the job, Karen says she is not hungry, and Gilda says the same about her husband. Are the two feeling effects of radiation poisoning? Gilda says it’s due to working too much and says her husband has been working late flushing out pipes because there has been a problem with accounting for lost plutonium. Karen zeroes in on that fact while the others just seem to want to dismiss the problem. But Karen knows it means that there could be some leaking of the lethal material, and writes down what Gilda says. Gilda says Karen should just be negotiating wages and avoid what is “none of our business.” She doesn’t want to acknowledge that, as Karen says, “this is our business.” That isolation Karen spoke of earlier carries over into the workplace as fellow employees now shun Karen. They fear her protests, which are aimed at improving their working environment, but they may cause the place to shut down. The film here suggests that the rich and powerful use the poverty of the workers as a tool against themselves, creating division among their members. 

Karen finally contacts Paul by using a public phone, probably worried that hers might be tapped. She notes the many health problems of the workers, but Paul stresses that they need the x-ray falsifications. He has put her in a dangerous position, using her as a pawn, and fellow union representative Morgan warns her of the danger she is in. Hurley uses intimidation by pointing out that Karen is late coming to work and returning from breaks (she was late before earlier on, but now it is not because of bad work habits but due to her crusade against unsafe conditions). 

After going to Gilda ‘s work area to try and get more information about the plutonium, which Gilda refuses to discuss, Karen again sets off the radiation monitoring alarm. She undergoes the scrubbing procedure once more, and Earl repeats that her exposure was superficial. He says she must now provide daily urine samples. In a foreshadowing scene, Karen, not feeling well, hits a deer and her car veers off the road. She calls Drew, and the two wind up in bed together. Dolly is thrilled that he is back, as she hopes for a return to their odd form of normalcy. But Drew tells Dolly he has his own place, and the two women are welcome to go there. His offer is a form of sanctuary to that “clean” place Karen yearned for, and shows how his coming back would just be an acceptance of an unhealthy situation. The fact that Karen spills some of her urine on the bathroom floor emphasizes the unclean nature of the place.

When Karen goes to work the next day, after being asked by the guard at the entrance how she’s doing, she jokingly says she’s “in the pink,” which is supposed to mean she’s okay. But pink is a shade of red, the color of being “cooked,” and the alarms go off before she even enters the building. The cleaning occurs again, and she cries as her body feels assaulted. Men from the company show up in hazmat gear and strip Karen’s house since the Geiger counter readings register radiation. The measures they take on the house are supposed to be for health reasons, but the company has created the mess that they are now cleaning up by invading Karen’s home. She fights to try to keep the framed photos of her children, but they take them from her, symbolically wiping away her family. Hurley says that there are no significant readings coming from Drew or Dolly, and none in Karen’s car. But there are elevated readings on the toilet, sink, and even cosmetics. Hurley accuses her of deliberately bringing the plutonium home just to “hurt” the company. Karen is smart, and remembers that she spilled the urine. She believes that the kit they gave her was “spiked” with plutonium, and when she spilled it the radiation spread. But her nasal swab indicates internal contamination, which the spilling would not explain. Karen is now hysterical from fear. Hurley seems compassionate now, promising to help Dolly with a place to stay and offering money. He is attempting to shut down her attempt at exposing the company’s unsafe work environment. Karen realizes his plan and says she knows he wants her to sign a statement that would waive any claims against the plant. She refuses to sacrifice her integrity and says that she is contaminated and she knows she is dying, and then drives off. 

Drew returns to the house he shared with Karen which now looks like a decaying corpse, which mirrors what happens to those ravaged by radiation exposure. Winston arrives and says he’s just looking around, but it appears that he is gloating. Drew’s outrage at what has happened to the person he loves boils over and he slugs Winston. He finds Karen at his house and Karen says she is convinced that the company has exposed her and wants her dead.

The three of them fly to Los Alamos, New Mexico, which has a history of dealing with nuclear bombs and radiation. The place seems to have caused and then tried to deal with the literal fallout of nuclear energy. On the plane, Karen reads an article by the journalist who Paul wanted to interview Karen. The article says that there is plutonium missing from almost all nuclear facilities. The danger is not just relegated to a few people, but now seems to be the threat that Karen heard about in Washington from union boss Richter. Karen wonders if the attack on her was because Dolly mentioned about Paul dealing with the New York Times, and Karen’s knowledge about the doctored x-rays. Dolly is not convincing in her denials, and she looks guilty. 

Despite the advanced scientific research and years of studying radioactive materials, the experts say they can be off by as much as three hundred percent in their readings. Karen has lost all faith in a world that finds individuals expendable, saying all the doctors are “liars.” She calls Paul and says she wants to talk to the journalist but she doesn't admit that she doesn’t have the x-ray evidence yet. As they fly back to Oklahoma, Drew says he would love to live in the southwestern part of America “forever,” The look on Karen’s face shows that she knows that her time left has become much more finite. Later Drew still talks about moving, and even having children, which Karen doubts can be possible now. He says in New Mexico you make the shapes of the rooms in a house any way one wants. He says, “It’s not a right-angle kind of life.” Karen has always been someone who didn’t comply with standard ways of living, but the personal tragedy is that she wasn’t able to find a place that really felt like home to her. 

Karen gets up the next morning, on time now, saying she has to go into work and then later to a union meeting. Drew warns her not to try and take anything out of the plant, suspecting she is going for the x-rays. That is why she wants Drew to pick up Paul and the journalist. She doesn’t want to fight with Drew and they smile and joke for the last time. In the background Karen again sings “Amazing Grace,” but now the words seem to imply that Karen has redeemed her soul. 

When she leaves the cafe after the union meeting there is over, it is dark. There are glaring headlights approaching very close to Karen’s car. The next image is that of Karen’s wrecked car, which was foretold by the earlier accident involving the deer.  There is a shot of Karen’s tombstone, but the last image is a flashback of Karen and Drew at their final happy moment together, followed by Karen driving off. It is a fitting closure to the story that started with her driving towards us. The movie ends with notes that say that Karen had a tranquilizer and alcohol in her system. Her death was declared to be accidental. No documents were found in her ruined car. The plant later closed. But her story now lasts forever.

The next film is Some Like It Hot.