‘Dopesick’ provides Purdue Pharma and OxyContin a sweeping dramatic therapy
It is a daunting undertaking, searching for to deal with particular person characters but additionally current the sweeping toll throughout communities, and the frustration of Justice Division and DEA workers engaged on parallel tracks realizing that the drug is addictive however going through one hurdle after one other in urgent these instances.
Michael Keaton occupies one of many pivotal roles as Dr. Samuel Finnix, a rustic doctor in a rural Virginia city at first reluctant to prescribe OxyContin earlier than regularly being gained over by a persistent gross sales rep (Will Poulter), who finally experiences his personal pangs of conscience amid Purdue’s elaborate gross sales methods and lavish seminars.
Different key gamers embody Kaitlyn Dever as certainly one of Finnix’s sufferers, Betsy, who suffers a mining harm that leads to her rising dependence on the drug; Peter Sarsgaard as Rick Mountcastle, a US Legal professional main the case; and Rosario Dawson as DEA agent Bridget Meyer, who retains operating afoul of her superiors and different businesses, with some regulators clearly recognizing, as she sardonically observes, the worth of “being pleasant to a possible future employer.”
“Dopesick” additionally takes the viewers contained in the workings of Purdue and the Sackler household’s unusual dynamics, hitting its most obviously off word within the personage of firm chief Richard Sackler, performed by Michael Stuhlbarg. Usually a sensational actor, Stuhlbarg performs Sackler like a mad scientist in a ’40s monster film — a distracting (and recurring) misstep in a collection that in any other case makes comparatively few of them.
Then once more, it does not require a lot embellishment to make Purdue look dangerous, from executives urging gross sales reps courting medical doctors to do “no matter it takes to win their friendship and their belief” to hiding behind official-sounding names just like the “Appalachian Ache Basis” to set minds comfortable in regards to the product’s use.
Sturdy and firm go to nice lengths creating these characters, spending maybe a bit an excessive amount of time on struggles at residence, from strained marriages amid the grueling hours to Betsy wrestling with popping out as a lesbian to her non secular dad and mom.
Finally, “Dopesick” grapples with dramatizing a sweeping story full of ache and corruption and brings it residence on probably the most human of ranges, in a means that antiseptic headlines usually cannot. And by way of gaining the eye that this story deserves, as Purdue executives may say, no matter it takes.
“Dopesick” premieres Oct. 13 on Hulu.
