After Painkiller, it is another dive into the pharmaceutical world that Netflix offers us with Merchants of pain. Emily Blunt and Chris Evans are the headliners.
If you are told the opioid crisis and Netflix, you are most likely thinking of Painkiller, the series that looks back on the fall of the pharmaceutical company Purdue Pharma, which marketed the hyper-addictive painkiller, Oxycontin.
Merchants of Pain, a film this time, does not tell the same story but takes place in the same universe. We follow the character played by Emily Blunt, Liza Drake, as she accepts a job in a Florida pharmaceutical start-up. Soon, she finds herself at the center of a criminal conspiracy…
Far from the heavy atmosphere of Painkiller, which adapts a true story, Merchants of Pain (Pain Hustlers in VO) is more of a very cynical comedy. It is told from the point of view of salespeople, those who are hired by pharmaceutical companies to go door to door and convince doctors to prescribe the drugs. Patients’ pain then becomes a marketing tool and what matters is making numbers.
This film directed by David Yates (Fantastic Beasts) offers a nice cast. In addition to Emily Blunt, there are also Chris Evans (Captain America), Andy Garcia and Catherine O’Hara. Merchants of Pain will be available on Netflix on October 27, after a visit to the Toronto Film Festival.