Dark Waters

As the year wraps up I've been thinking a lot about what the best film of 2020 might be for me. Admittedly, I've not seen a lot. It's crazy as last year I went to the cinema and saw more new releases than ever before, and yet as new releases have technically become more accessible with them all being streamed now I just find myself less inclined to bother. After all, so much is about the experience itself of being at the actual movie theater and that immersive experience. It's why I can't relate when people philosophize about "is this the end of movie theaters" because they personally would rather watch from their sofa on a small screen filled with distractions. No thanks.

Despite having not seen much this year, I do think for me, personally, my favourite movie has definitely been Dark Waters. I know technically this is listed on IMDb as 2019, but it was released at the very end of and wasn't released in Europe until 2020, so to me, a European, it's a 2020 release!

I really had no idea what I was getting into when I decided to watch this movie, I just thought the trailer looked interesting, and those gritty investigative movies starring Mark Ruffalo are one of my absolute favourite genres all by themselves.

Told from the perspective of lawyer Rob Bilott (Mark Ruffalo) the story begins almost as a mystery as he's brought an environmental case by a local farmer and begins investigating the huge multi-billion corporation Dupont, and discovers the toxic waste they've been pumping into America's water supplies. The plot of this movie is absolutely enraging as Bilott soon realises just how far the corporate tentacles that grip every aspect of our lives go, and how untouchable such a huge company are even from the government, which just feels even more relevent with the state of the world right now.

I appreciate how difficult it must have been to write a movie that's essentially about research compelling, but they managed it. Ruffalo literally spends a portion of the film sorting through endless boxes of paperwork, and yet I still found myself on the edge of my seat at what he was about to uncover.

"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."

I'm not sure why this movie isn't more popular, wasn't more widely discussed, didn't pick up steam and garner any kind of social action, but it's a shame (and its quite easy to get all tin foil hat about why none of these things happened). Not only does this movie have a really important message, but it also tells it well and is just really well made. I've seen it three times this year, and the power of it's message never dilutes even when you know it's coming. It's just an incredible movie, and one of my favourites of all time, not just 2020.