THE BITTER PILL is playing at SBIFF (Santa Barbara International Film Festival), and I had the opportunity to see an early look – here’s my Spoiler Free take:
I’m a huge fan of J. Clay Tweel’s previous work. FINDERS KEEPERS is an unsung classic that depicts our addiction to fame and reality television. His next feature, GLEASON, captured the power of the human spirit and our ability to overcome against the odds. When I heard that Clay Tweel was taking on the opioid epidemic, I was all in for THE BITTER PILL. Sadly, the film is a “bitter pill” to swallow, where the content is more important than the context (the framing in which the story is told).
Tweel’s films tend to have eccentric protagonists, and THE BITTER PILL is told from the perspective of the charismatic soda-guzzling plaintiff attorney, Paul Farrell Jr. It’s a classic story of David vs. Goliath, as Farrell takes on big pharma to recover money for his hometown in West Virginia.
The challenge of the THE BITTER PILL is not the charismatic Farrell. Instead, it’s the subject matter. This is a dense film with difficult-to-comprehend legal mumbo-jumbo. While it will leave audiences scratching their heads at times, it’s crucial to see as it illuminates how much one judge and our judicial system can negatively affect the American people.
