MovieChat Forums > Silkwood (1984) Discussion > Some doubts remain

Some doubts remain

posted 17 years ago by Taoist-Br
2 replies | jump to latest

Hi, everyone,

I just saw it yesterday, looove it, but can't help but to try to wrap up some loose ends.

They are:

A) "Drew hitting Winston in the face, near the end of the movie." - Hey, could someone tell me why that happened? I don't see any connection to the plot, other than Drew thought the disgusting guy was coming to check if his bosses job was done right. Was him jealous of Winston trying to 'hit' her in her first day at the new job? I think she never told Drew about.

B) "How she got contaminated" - I understood that she dropped her urine sample bottle in the bathroom, and all made sense (the house have checked positive, the fridge, et all, but her friends not having plutonium traces, etc.), but how did she got contaminated in first place was not told to viewers, or was it?

Any help out there?

[–] Registered_User 17 years ago

It is implied that Winston was the one who contaminated Karen's urine sample, thus Drew's punching him.

A good traveller has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.

[–] redban (5158) 3 years ago

The punching of Winston was a combination of things imo:

1). Kurt Russell’s character was emotional at the time; he was crying after walking through the apartment, seeing his old home in that condition. So he wasn’t right mentally. That’s why he made a rash decision to hit the dude. Just a heat of the moment thing.

2). He also likely felt that Winston’s coming to see the place was distasteful. Winston wasn’t a close friend or anything. That’s why Russel asked, “what are you doing here?” Winston came to the apartment to be nosy or to gloat at other Karen’s misfortune (or both)? That pissed off Kurt Russel

As for your question about how she got contaminated. We really don’t know.

The movie makes clear that the workers in the plant were not good at following safety protocol. They were eating cake in the workplace, Karen had to be reminded to check her hands before she left the room, she had that guy take gum off her face in an opening scene etc.

On the other side, the company had some shady practices. See the x-ray fiasco. See the the truck disposal. So the company didn’t do an excellent job at keeping their workers safe.

So how did Karen get contaminated? From her workplace. We don’t know the specific incident or cause. But at some point during her job, she got contaminated. Just unsafe working conditions