A Civil Action

A Civil Action is a 1998 erotic legal comedy film written by Steven Zaillian (known for Schindler's List) featuring John Travolta, Kathleen Quinlan and Trichloroethylene, based on a book that is based on totally real events.

Plot

In early 1980s, the Bostonese lawyer Jan Snitchmann (Travolta) gets a call from a woman during a podcast recording. The woman is Anne Anderson (Quinlan) whose son is dead from leukemia and she believes a chemical she read on newspaper might be responsible. Slipmann ignores her calls multiple times. His manager tells him that Anderson keeps spamming mails. Shitmann visits Anderson's village Woburn. Shipmann is welcomed by emotionally manipulative parents at a church strangely named Hippity-hoppity Trichloroethylenity Episcopal Church. All claim that a chemical named trichloroethylene (which they learnt about on newspaper) gave their kids leukemia and the chemical was discharged by two large companies. Shtickmann's eyes go $$ when he hears the "two large companies".

In the evening of the same day, Anne Anderson invites Sheetmann to her home, shows him her son Jimmy's photos and toys. She tells how Jim suffered from leukemia and she finally had to pillow him. During their speech, Anderson pushes Skewmann down to the bed. The two start having sex and Anderson screams "Fuck trichloroethylene!" in pleasure levels as high as poor Jimmy's white blood cell levels. Shiftmann asks Anderson whether she wants a threesome with trichloroethylene. Anderson goes serious and asks him "Do you think that Little Jimmy is watching us from above?"

The next day Sfluffmann starts writing reports on the two companies that discharged tons of trichloroethylene to everywhere they could find. He calls his lawyer besties and offers to go drinking together. At the bar, he brags about how he is going to get so much money and had sex. His lawyer besties tell him that he's got to find evidence that trichloroethylene is responsible for the leukemia cases.

The next week, Sheepmann spends all of his and his co-workers' money on research on trichloroethylene. They lose all of their money to special trichloroethylene research, now unable to pay any of their bills. Shrinkmann and his co-workers eat off-brand ramen in the candle light for the next 2 years. He runs away to Anderson one day, cries in her arms and says: "We couldn't find any research on trichloroethylene causing leukemia..." They go to the bed and do it once again. He talks with whistleblowers from the companies next day. They say that they were forced to huff trichloroethylene every day or they would be whipped.

A real device made specifically for huffing trichloroethylene

Meanwhile in the two companies, their managers and lawyer work real hard to get the case dropped. By denying all claims. Sketchmann's co-workers, lawyer besties and random workers he hired start digging down the earth to find hidden trichloroethylenes in the groundwater. Joke's on them, trichloroethylene does not mix with water and just sinks. So the team had to learn diving to find trichloroethylene. In a span of 3 years, they still have not found a single evidence that trichloroethylene caused leukemia in anyone. Then they realise they could have moved onto benzene which causes real leukemia for real and had real industrial uses. Anyway, the team finds some little trichloroethylenes sitting below the water and they write a report. Skirtlemann gets to go drinking with his besties once again years later. The companies were totally pwned this time. See you all in the court.

Slurpmann and Woburnite families win the case and get trillions of dollars from the two companies. Whistleblowers were secretly executed by the companies but who cares now? The companies were told to clean up all trichloroethylenes they dumped. Schmuckmann buys himself a Rolls-Royce and gets his suits dry-cleaned with the dead kids' trichloroethylene money.

Differences from the book

The book A Civil Action also features trichloroethylene and dead kids. But unlike the film, the book features tetrachloroethylene also. Producers of the film intentionally avoided including tetrachloroethylene because it would involve shooting sex scenes with dry cleaners. In the book, Jan Skittlemann actually tries huffing trichloroethylene and gets addicted to it, wasting his money on trichloroethylene.

Reception

The film was so well received that nobody - not even fans of Travolta or trichloroethylene - remembers it. IMDb lists as The Critical Failure of 1998. Watchers found sex scenes inappropriate.

Years later someone copied the entire script of A Civil Action, replaced trichloroethylene with Teflon, changed all names, added more sex and released under the title Dark Waters in 2019.

Facts

• None of that actually happened. The whole film was produced under influence of trichloroethylene.

• Trichloroethylene actually exists. It looks, smells and tastes like chloroform. It is some ancient anaesthetic that nobody except tree huggers who hate it knows. Trichloroethylene has been described as "a World Trade Center in slow motion" by the so-called trichloroethylene experts and "you would never notice it".

• They casted John Travolta because they thought he would make some scientology tricks.

• The "tri-" in trichloroethylene is pronounced like "try", not "three", so Slurpmann's joke to Anderson fell flat.

• You cannot sue trichloroethylene.

• Kids get leukemia all the time.

• The producers forgot including a cameo from Sture Bergwall, a real-life trichloroethylene addict who killed multiple real people for trichloroethylene money.

• Believe it or not, trichloroethylene does not cause leukemia.