![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Moreover, the Sackler family saga brings dimension to figures best known as avatars of avarice, people who didn’t care about the collateral damage done to fatten Purdue’s bottom line. Stuhlbarg says Sackler made decisions based on what he thought best for those who were suffering. “Dopesick” is information-dense, certainly: The investigative story in the series has the handy effect of breaking down why Ox圜ontin was more dangerous than the opioids that preceded it, and the depiction of sales reps (including one played by Will Poulter) pushing it gives a sense of how the tragedy grew so seismically. It may make that shrinking number of less-aware Americans understand the loss of life and of potential stemming from this powerful drug being prescribed for moderate pain. “Dopesick,” which arrives in the wake of Purdue’s bankruptcy settlement last month, promises to close the knowledge gap. I’m hoping if people haven’t read the thousands of articles about this, they can watch these eight episodes.” “I’m hoping it opens minds and hearts in a way that helps us start to finally mend problems. “Our jails are full of people who were early victims of what these people did,” Macy says. ![]() “Someone’s arrested for dealing.” That’s a triumph, she says, for Richard Sackler’s strategy of treating Ox圜ontin users, not its pushers, as criminals. “Most of America only sees the crime reports,” says Macy. Indeed, the line between those who have firsthand experience of opioid ravages, in their own life or their family or community, and those who simply know it from the news is becoming a defining divide within the nation. Jeff Daniels plays a cop with a drug habit in Showtime’s “American Rust.” Dennis Mong And Macy’s book was a best-seller, perhaps because its themes resonate both with those who’ve known addiction and those who see in the Sacklers a greater story of misdeeds unpunished. But it took an understanding of how ready the audience was to consider the subject too.īoth Netflix’s and Hulu’s productions draw on the deep well of substantial journalism: Netflix’s series uses as resources the books “Empire of Pain” by Patrick Radden Keefe and “Pain Killer” by Barry Meier. Hulu was committed to “Dopesick” even when it appeared the show would be following another, very similar project. “Deep Impact” story of two dueling shows - or three, if you count the planned Strong and Macy pilots at their inceptions - about something so fundamental to the contemporary American experience. Seen from another angle, though, there’s something exciting here, and not merely because of the crass “Armageddon” vs. I’d written several drafts of my script before I heard Netflix had a show. “Their show ended up delaying for quite a long period of time, because they were ahead of us. “We were actually in a race against them to go into production, which sucks,” Strong says. Strong admits that he felt a sense of competition with Netflix’s upcoming “Painkiller,” a series that similarly features loglines touching on Sackler and on his victims, while making “Dopesick.” “Painkiller” is set to feature Matthew Broderick as Richard Sackler and to be directed by Peter Berg and executive produced by Alex Gibney, among others. It’s one of those things that has been insidious.” While on set, “a colleague of mine told me about the son of a friend of his who had just died of a fentanyl overdose - someone he had just seen a few days previously. The epidemic’s reach became evident to Michael Stuhlbarg, who plays Richard Sackler in “Dopesick,” even as he was working on a previous project. As Macy puts it, “Danny’s love of the exciting true-crime part is in my book, but where my influence came in was with families on the ground and victims.” Strong, known for imaginatively illuminating true stories in HBO’s films “Recount” and “Game Change,” lends dramatic firepower, while Macy’s reporting, as well as investigation and interviews the two reporters did together, pushes forward the human factor. Once the redundancy became clear, “we literally met in the middle,” in Chicago, Macy says - to bring together their approaches and to begin a collaboration. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |