I used to go jogging every day after work in Washington, DC – always passing by the Smithsonian’s Arthur M. Sackler Gallery. World class art resides inside the doors, but that name on the sign outside, a name I was not aware of then, is at the center of Hulu’s new series, Dopesick.
It was the Sackler family, the people behind Purdue Pharma, who started off with Arthur’s practice as a psychiatrist and, most notably, as a pioneer of pharmaceutical advertising and direct marketing to physicians, back before World War II. This is important to know because we now know that the Sacklers are most notorious for having developed Oxy Contin and, arguably, were directly responsible for the opioid crisis that killed hundreds of thousands and lead to crime and ruination of addicts’ lives—all while being approved by the FDA.
And that’s what Dopesick is about over the course of 8 episodes. Alex Gibney’s 4 hour documentary Crime of the Century is a better, tighter and more all-encompassing telling of the history, but people don’t watch docs as much as they do series – and this one has the advantage of an all-star cast, and the ability to tell multiple storylines simultaneously while also jumping back and forth in time. It is not an insult to say that it plays like a Prime Time drama, and I think it should be viewed as such. It’s not as bingeable as most streaming series, for better or worse, and the leisurely pace and slow reveals work better if you watch one or two episodes at a time.
Michael Keaton plays an Appalachian doctor who knows all his patients by name, and delivered hundreds of them himself. He’s in rural mining country – a place where hard-working, God-fearing, Blue Collar miners get hurt and succumb to severe pain. In other words – people whose whole lives change for the better, once the Doc starts prescribing this new “safe” and “non-addictive” pain medication in the mid-90s.
Of course, we all know now that it was too good to be true.
But physicians were wined and dined and lied to by aggressive sales reps, played here by the excellent Will Poulter, among others in a huge cast that also switches intermittently to the U.S. attorneys, Rick Mountcastle (Peter Sarsgaard) and Randy Ramseyer (John Hoogenaaker) who are working hard, years later, to bring the guilty to justice. Rosario Dawson is also trying to make way toward exposing the truth but the so-called “good guys” seem to be in the way at every turn.
I will leave it to the story to reveal how successful they were at bringing anyone to justice within this series– which brings up a point: while Dopesick is based on truth (adapted from the non-fiction book by Beth Macy) the series, helmed by show runner Danny Strong, uses fictional characters, composites and some creative license. Again, you can get the more concentrated and factual account from Crime of the Century.
So, here’s what we have: great performances by Keaton and virtually the entire cast, with the exception of the usually great Michael Stuhlbarg, who plays the evil Richard Sackler in some kind of weirdly voiced, hunched, almost pitiable family black sheep. Not sure what he was going for, but it takes a few episodes to get used to it. Major props to Kaitlyn Dever as the miner whose work related injury leads to more misery than she could have ever foreseen.
Also, it’s an entertaining take on the storyline, although, again, there’s a LOT of characters, timelines and flashbacks going on. I think it’s okay to say “entertaining” in this context. How else would you be down for watching 8 hours (only the first 7 were available to screen in advance)?
Dopesick is now on Hulu. 3 Episodes premiered on October 13th, with additional episodes to be released weekly. Reviewed by Kyle Osborne. 3 out of 4 Stars
I agree that you administer this series on a slow drip… one episode at a time. It is ‘entertaining,’ despite it’s evil and depressing subject matter. And, man, kudos to Keaton for what he manages to say in those twitchy facial closeups in this thing. Phenomenal!
I enjoyed this review. Interesting topic for me.