Dopesick

Given the size of its canvas, Dopesick is a remarkable achievement, which clearly lays out the facts of the slow-burning tragedy, with lots of helpful date reminders, without losing track of the human stories behind it.

At times Dopesick can feel similarly overwhelming. But it also feels important that these stories be told.

The cast is excellent and empathetic, helping ground the series.

Dopesick will certainly be a slow burn in spots. But it deals with a subject whose depth most people aren’t aware of, and the performances are so good that it should keep viewers interested.

It verges at times on hokey melodrama. ... So, yes, I’m disappointed. But I'm recommending Dopesick anyway, because quite honestly I don’t think the show was designed for a viewer like me. ... Hulu has apparently decided that this adaptation of a nonfiction book should resemble a very long movie-of-the-week — but you know, a lot of people like to watch those.

Committed turns from Keaton (always an excellent everyman) and Dever (who goes through the wringer) only get you so far, as Hulu’s valiant endeavor just keeps hammering home a point it made straight from the jump.

Despite powerful performances from Michael Keaton and several of his top-tier co-stars, Dopesick is a frustrating selection of questionable narrative choices and bizarrely bad performances from typically unimpeachable actors. It’s a muddled telling of an urgent story.

Dopesick is pretty well done because they show many angles of the effects from the drug Oxycontin.

(Mauro Lanari) Why a non-linear narrative? Perhaps to distinguish it from "Traffic" (Soderbergh 2000), from the 4th and final excellent season of "Goliath", from the extraordinary "Kill the Messenger" directed in 2014 by the same Michael Cuesta who signed the 3rd and 4th episode of this "Dopesick"? Just to say that on the subject there were already illustrious precedents, but all affected by the similar flaw: the apology of quixoticism, the idea that it is better to win battles by losing the war rather than the opposite. A television miniseries that therefore exalts the "beautiful losers": better than nothing or not? If humans survive only by taking some kind of drug, there must be an explanation.

admirable [ ad-mer-uh-buhl ] adjective worthy of admiration; inspiring approval, reverence, or affection.

An interesting show, but take enormous liberties with the truth. For example; it makes a huge deal about OXY commercials never mentioning the name of the drug. The US is one of only two nations that allows direct pharmaceutical advertising. There are two kinds of ads, those that mention the drug, and those that don't. Watch network TV news, any night. The only people who ACTUALLY exist in the mini-series are the Sacklers (who are made to look like literal demons, even though none have ever been convicted of anything) and the two assistant US attorneys in Virginia. EVERYONE else is made up; the DEA official, the doctor played by Michael Keaton, the Purdue detail rep. One of the biggest ironies is that studies from Harvard and Stanford confirm that the addiction rates for people prescribed opioids legitimately ends up being at, or just under 1%. That isn't chopped liver, but it is not what the show portrays. Two years after the show - 25 years after the events in the show, the United States is seeing the worst drug epidemic in its history - and it has nothing to do with ANY pharmaceutical drugs. The issue are bootleg meth and fentanyl, killing a whole magnitude more people. One of the great ironies is that the whole show demonizes Oxycontin but calls out the NAME brand of one of the most promising Medication Assisted Therapy drugs (buprenorphine). Some fact, a lot of fiction.

I haven't seen something this poorly written or acted in a while. It does check off all the social justice boxes for diversity and inclusion but that's all it's got going for it. Some scenes are good and the dialogue feels like it was written by a competent person who is humans. Some scenes feel really out of place and the dialogue is so badly written it makes you want wish you were never alive. This is why I don't watch any original programming on Hulu or any of these services. It's so low budget that you are rarely going to get a hit. But that's the point they just want content to say they have content. They don't care if it's good. None of the characters are interesting.