The China Syndrome

Jane Fonda stars as spunky reporter, Kimberly Wells, aching to do hard news, but stuck serving as eye candy in degrading puff pieces involving zoo animals and singing telegrams. While doing an innocuous segment on a nuclear power plant, Kimberly and dashing cameraman, Richard Adams (Michael Douglas – who also produced), stumble upon an accident that brings them into the orbit of Jack Godell (Jack Lemmon, who won Best Actor at both CANNES & BAFTA), a true-believer power-plant employee who becomes an unlikely whistle-blower.

“The events leading up to the “accident” in “The China Syndrome” are indeed based on actual occurrences at nuclear plants. Even the most unlikely mishap (a stuck needle on a graph causing engineers to misread a crucial water level) really happened at the Dresden plant outside Chicago. And yet the movie works so well not because of its factual basis, but because of its human content. The performances are so good, so consistently, that “The China Syndrome” becomes a thriller dealing in personal values. The suspense is generated not only by our fears about what might happen, but by our curiosity about how, in the final showdown, the characters will react.” (Roger-Ebert.com)

“A large part of the film is simply people having conversations in rooms – but oh what people. Oh what conversations.” (Fiction Machine)

“It’s refreshing beyond hyperbole to see such suspense generated not by distortions of human perversion and/or heroism, but by well-portrayed human reactions in a terrible but not exaggerated situation.” (L.A. Weekly)

COMING SOON!

THE CHINA SYNDROME (James Bridges, 1979 / 122 mins / PG) While doing a series of reports on alternative energy sources, opportunistic reporter Kimberly Wells witnesses an accident at a nuclear power plant. Wells is determined to publicize the incident, but soon finds herself entangled in a sinister conspiracy to keep the full impact of the incident a secret.

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