Dark Waters (2019)

What gives Dark Waters its singular texture is that Todd Haynes (“Carol,” “Far From Heaven”), who has never made a drama remotely like this, colors in the scenario with an underlying dimension of personalized obsession.

The subtle brilliance of its mise-en-scene, from 1980s Ohio boardrooms and rubber-chicken dinners to all-black wait staff and the casual discrimination against women, beds the story in the awful truth.

Successfully restraining himself throughout from getting fancy or experimental, Haynes has intently devoted himself to the story and his actors, with strong, unshowy work that ideally serves the tale being told.

It’ll be much too easy to bail on what is a very slow-building first 30 minutes for those watching on a streaming service in the near future. If they make it an hour in, they’ll be pleased to know that John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads” is prominently featured, as any West Virginia film seems obligated to boast. But outside of that, the lack of respite is rightly suffocating and will be unfortunately repelling for those who approach film as a mindless escape.

While Dark Waters often suffers mightily for being so inert, it always manages to circumvent lulls by embracing Bilott’s persistence, which works as an anecdote to corporate America, whose stranglehold over the country comes through in Edward Lachman’s deathly grey visuals defined by lifeless rural vistas.