Netflix’s latest attempt to bring the dark side of the pharmaceutical industry to the screen comes with Pain Hustlers, starring Chris Evans and Emily Blunt.
Director David Yates (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them) set out to create a story with comedic elements while still delivering a harsh critique of the industry.
The film takes a highly dramatized approach to adapting Evan Hughes’s nonfiction book, Pain Hustlers: Crime and Punishment at an Opioid Startup, which delves into the rise and corruption of a billionaire-backed pharmaceutical company and the minimal consequences its executives faced.
Corporate greed and corruption unravel in Pain Hustlers (Photo: Pain Hustlers/Grey Matter Productions, Wychwood Media)At the heart of the film is Liza Drake (Blunt), a fictionalized character who starts as a struggling single mother working as a strip-club dancer. Her life takes a drastic turn when she crosses paths with Pete Brenner (Evans), a pharmaceutical rep who tempts her with a lucrative opportunity.
Offering her a six-figure salary, he recruits her to sell Lonafen, a Fentanyl-based spray produced by the pharmaceutical company Zanna.
Liza quickly climbs the corporate ladder while juggling responsibilities as a mother to Phoebe (Chloe Coleman), a young girl battling epilepsy caused by a brain tumor. Liza’s mother, Jackie (Catherine O’Hara), also plays a role in her journey, adding another layer to her story.
As Zanna expands, the company’s unethical sales tactics—including bribing doctors and concealing Lonafen’s addictive properties—draw the attention of federal investigators.
The reality of the crisis becomes undeniable when Liza sees firsthand how overdose deaths are spiraling out of control. Coming to terms with the company’s role in the opioid epidemic, she decides to cooperate with authorities.
Her confession helps bring down everyone involved, including Zanna’s billionaire investor Jack Neel (Andy Garcia), who is caught through a fabricated subplot involving a scandalous relationship with Liza’s mother. Incriminating emails also play a role in his downfall.
Although convictions are handed out, the punishments are relatively light, and the company in the end collapses. Liza’s fate takes a turn for the better—after serving a short 15-month sentence, she reinvents herself by selling her mother’s skincare products.
However, a lingering question remains: how did Phoebe manage to get the surgery she needed once Liza left Zanna? Pain Hustlers never directly answers that, yet by the film’s conclusion, she appears to be in good health.
As the credits roll, Yates includes footage that ties the film’s fictionalized events to the real-world individuals who inspired the story.
The film also highlights a bizarre but true detail from the case—Chris Evans’s character performs a parody rap, which was used as a promotional strategy by the real pharmaceutical company.
If there’s one takeaway from the film, it’s that anything marketed through a fake hip-hop track should probably raise red flags.
