Pain hustlers
There are many film narratives that relate to opioid addiction, some documentary and others, like this one, “based on true events.” Run time is just under 2 hours and there’s little sexual or violent content (though plenty of strong language), so it could be used in many undergrad classes: health communication, media studies, pre-health professions. The focus is on a mythical small pharmaceutical company that hits a goldmine when a bright young woman figures out how to market their brand of fentanyl to greedy, unscrupulous doctors. She tries to keep the men in charge of the company within ethical and legal bounds, without success, and the epidemic of addiction follows its well-known course. At the end there is footage of real pharma executives receiving real prison sentences, reminding the audience this isn’t just a fable. Advantage of a drama over documentary – or perhaps in tandem with one – is opening questions of sympathetic portrayals and power differences based on sex and class. Available on Netflix.