Silkwood is a 1983 American biographical drama film directed by Mike Nichols, and starring Meryl Streep, Kurt Russell, and Cher.

In real life, her inconclusive death in a car crash gave rise to a 1979 lawsuit, Silkwood v. Kerr-McGee, led by attorney Gerry Spence.

Warner Bros. ultimately abandoned the project after producer Buzz Hirsch was subpoenaed by an Oklahoma City judge to disclose all of the film's research materials, an effort that was overruled by a 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver.

Karen Silkwood, a worker at the Kerr-McGee Cimarron Fuel Fabrication Site (near Crescent, Oklahoma), shares a ramshackle house with two co-workers, her boyfriend Drew Stephens and her lesbian friend Dolly Pelliker.

Because the plant has ostensibly fallen behind on a major contract – fabricating MOX fuel rods for a breeder reactor at the Hanford Site in Washington state – employees are required to work long hours and weekends of overtime.

When she sees weld sample radiographies of fuel rods being retouched to hide shoddy work, and that records of inadequate safety measures had been altered, she decides to investigate further herself.

[4] Executive producers Buzz Hirsch and Larry Cano, while both graduate students at the University of California, Los Angeles, became fascinated by Silkwood's story and sought to bring it to the screen.

[4] Kerr-McGee subsequently subpoenaed Hirsch to appear at a deposition in Oklahoma City, requesting that he produce all of the audition tapes, script notes, and other research materials for the studio's planned film adaptation.

[4] In the fall of 1980, ABC Motion Pictures began revamping Hirsch's original project with Nora Ephron and Alice Arlen writing the screenplay.

[4] Producer Frank Yablans, though not credited on the film, was involved in the project's development and was approached by director Mike Nichols, who was hired to direct.

[citation needed] On December 8, 1983, 20th Century Fox held a local community screening of the film in Oklahoma City, inviting five executives from Kerr-McGee to attend.

[10] Vincent Canby of The New York Times called the film "a precisely visualized, highly emotional melodrama that's going to raise a lot of hackles" and "a very moving work."

We are drawn into the story of Karen Silkwood by the absolute accuracy and unexpected sweetness of its Middle American details and then, near the end, abandoned by a film whose images say one thing and whose final credit card another.

It's like watching a skydiver execute all sorts of graceful, breath-taking turns, as he appears to ignore gravity and fly on his own, only to have him smash to earth when the chute doesn't open.

"[12] David Sterritt of The Christian Science Monitor called the film "a fine example of Hollywood's love-hate attitude toward timely and controversial subject matter."

Meryl Streep gives the year's most astounding performance by an actress, adding vigor and complexity to almost every scene with her endlessly inventive portrayal of the eccentric heroine.

"[14] Angela Bonavoglia of Cinéaste similarly noted that the film features some "painfully patronizing moments", but conceded that it no less "manages an effective portrayal of working class life, especially its monotony and vulnerability.