Minamata

For better and for worse, Minamata is reminiscent of another recent fact-based tale of chemical company misdeeds, Dark Waters.

Much like Mark Ruffalo’s strong performance anchored Todd Haynes’ flawed film, Johnny Depp’s committed portrayal of Life magazine photographer W. Eugene Smith provides a solid center for director/co-writer Andrew Levitas (Lullaby) as the visual essayist depicts victims of mercury poisoning who live by and professionally fish in the titular Japanese bay in the early ’70s.

And similar to Bill Pullman’s eccentric West Virginia trial lawyer pepping up Dark Waters, Bill Nighy is an asset to Minamata with his usual delightful character-building as grumpy Life editor Robert Hayes, who adds tension to Smith’s mission with his ultimatum regarding the freelancer’s past bad behavior while on assignment.

Further consistent with its predecessor, the more Smith digs into the misdeeds of the Chisso Corporation and the blind eye turned by the Japanese government, the more trouble befalls him and his Asian allies to increasingly harrowing degrees.

As Smith and local activists Aileen (Minami, Battle Royale) and Mitsuo (Hiroyuki Sanada, The Wolverine) risk their lives to document the victims’ gnarled limbs and institutional coverups, Levitas films them with a fairly anonymous lens that generally fits the material and lines up with other basic historical dramatizations, but is unlikely to raise his profile as a director.

Where Levitas and his collaborators do succeed, however, is in educating viewers on a critical moment in history, and their reconstructions of the famed "Tomoko Uemura in Her Bath” photo and other parts of Smith’s award-winning project alone make the film worth seeing.

B-minus. Rated R. Currently seeking distribution

(Photo by Larry D. Horricks)