Director Mike Nichols ("The Graduate") brings to the screen the tragic story of working class hero Karen Silkwood (Meryl Streep), who died under mysterious circumstances while trying to expose shady practices at the Kerr-McGee plant, the Oaklahoma nuclear power plant where she worked. Nichols' film centers on Karen, her boyfriend Drew (Kurt Russell) and their roommate Dolly (Cher), who may or may not have been a traitor to Karen. It is speculated in the film that Dolly told Kerr-McGee that Karen had gathered some particularly damaging evidence against them, which indeed Karen had done. Whether Dolly had her own reasons for offering the information is still open to debate. But with the help of an impassioned union representative (Ron Silver) Karen eventually decides to meet with a reporter from the New York Times and make the story public. Karen Silkwood died the day of that planned meeting, in what many believe was an act of premeditated murder, disguised by the Kerr-McGee bigwigs as a single-car accident. The plant shut down one year after Silkwood's death, and there is still debate about whether or not plutonium from Kerr-McGee was supplied to Middle Eastern entities. It's a fascinating case about the ethics of corporate power, and also about one person's noble attempt to expose and improve a corrupt system. But "Silkwood" mostly focuses on the human casualties of said corruption, and it does so with a knock-out cast and a terrific script. It is equal parts character study and corporate-political expose, and it is no doubt due to Mr. Nichols' direction that both aspects succeed admirably. While I'm not particularly a Meryl Streep fan, Karen Silkwood is a role she was obviously born to play. She throws herself so fully into the part that the actress disappears completely. Streep brings an accessible, warm funkiness to Karen, and makes her at once sexy, insecure, volcanic, and pitiable. The script does not shy away from Silkwood's own occasionally dubious nature, and the script is smart enough not to canonize her. Russell gives one of his most realistic performances, light years beyond his heavy-handed turns in such films as "Big Trouble in Little China". He has a terrific chemistry with Streep, as well as with Cher, and I think it was with "Silkwood" (as well as "Escape From New York") that he really transcended his early Disney career, and began to be considered for better, more mature roles. Cher, who had recently made her film debut in Robert Altman's "Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean", is excellent as the tender, ambiguous Dolly. Her scenes when Dolly is lying (?) to Karen about the exact information that she supplied to Kerr-McGee are chilling; there is something terrible just beneath the surface of Dolly's reactions, and Cher plays this awkward discussion with a distant, downplayed brilliance. I think the role of Dolly is her best film acting to date. Every performance in the film works, with Diana Scarwid ("Mommie Dearest") standing out in her small role as Dolly's lover Angela. It seems impossible to imagine anyone else in these roles, or anyone but Nichols directing the film. It is claustrophobic and frightening at times, and at other times it is sublimely beautiful and haunting. Not to be missed.