As somebody who was born within the Netherlands and moved to the US as an adolescent, I’m typically requested what I really feel is the largest distinction between America and Europe. To their shock, it’s not the truth that folks on this aspect of the Atlantic can personal semi-automatics, unironically order breakfast at McDonald’s, or must be 21 to legally drink beer.
It’s that, everytime you activate the tv, there’s probability you’ll run right into a industrial for some type of prescription medicine. Antidepressants, immunosuppressants, antipyretics, analgesics, antiseptics, even these DIY colon most cancers screeners are marketed alongside vehicles and Coca-Cola cans. Additionally they all observe the identical system: a Lynchian mixture of sappy music, sappier scenes of picnicking households and honeymooning lovers, and lengthy, hastily-read lists of extreme and probably life-threatening negative effects. Watching them makes you are feeling a bit of unwell, and that’s most likely the purpose.
Nobody, we’re advised in an episode of Netflix’s Painkiller, was higher at advertising and marketing medicine than the Sacklers, the household on the head of the disgraced however for some unfathomable motive nonetheless operational pharmaceutical firm Purdue Pharma. Between 1990 and 2020, this household earned an estimated $10 billion in earnings pushing OxyContin. Throughout the identical time, OxyContin, an especially addictive painkiller, killed upwards of 564,000 folks.
Painkiller, whose 6 episodes premiered on August 10, explores the hyperlink between these two statistics and the unresolved authorized battle they sparked. Matthew Broderick stars as Richard Sackler, nephew of the diseased patriarch Arthur Sackler who rebranded OxyContin – initially synthesized by German researchers in 1916 – from an end-of-life painkiller right into a surprise treatment for illnesses each main and minor. Uzo Aduba is Edie Flowers, a fictionalized model of a number of real-life attorneys that went after derelict docs, negligent FDA staff, and, lastly, the Sacklers themselves. Final however not least, Taylor Kitsch crawls contained in the pores and skin of 1 Glen Kryger, yet one more composite character, this one representing the Sacklers’ numerous victims. Glen is a friendly-neighborhood mechanic with a loving spouse, a younger daughter, and good-for-nothing staff whose completely imperfect life is turned the other way up when certainly one of mentioned staff by accident breaks his again. A very pleasant and charismatic physician then prescribes Glen some opioids, to which he inevitably turns into addicted.
As a piece of movie and storytelling, Painkiller appears well-crafted sufficient. Dialogue is layered and impactful. Manufacturing high quality is excessive however not overindulgent. Scenes have been evidently put along with a way of objective. Within the opening, Richard Sackler is woken up by a malfunctioning smoke alarm, which he can’t attain as a result of the ceilings in his mansion are too excessive. The that means appears apparent: that there’s a value to pay for his insane wealth, and in addition that he’s oblivious to warning calls sounding round him. Additionally price noting is the introduction of Glen, which takes its time to familiarize the viewers together with his world earlier than the slightly suspensefully executed accident takes place.
As a remedy of one of many nation’s largest and most up-to-date tragedies, nevertheless, Painkiller leaves rather a lot to be desired. At sure factors, it feels such as you’re watching Succession however for the Sacklers as a substitute of the Roys. There’s a deal with household drama and a slight fetishization of their wealth, energy, and even their lack of humanity that clashes with the Edie’s and particularly Glen’s perspective: the angle of the victims. Then once more, though documentaries like Heroin(e) and Recovery Boys approached the topic rather more respectfully, Painkiller stands poised to draw extra eyeballs, increase extra consciousness in regards to the epidemic, and additional antagonize the Sacklers – that are all good issues.
Don’t get me mistaken, loads of fucked up and sickeningly unjust issues occur in Europe, however the stuff you see in Painkiller – docs stealing from Medicare and prescribing medicine like they’re promoting snake oil – are simply such uniquely American phenomena. I wish to assume I do know and belief the healthcare professionals I work together with right here within the underserved city in rural Georgia the place I’m at present based mostly, however the issue is that in a for-profit system you may by no means be 100% certain that others have your greatest pursuits at coronary heart.