- Welcome to POV.
I'm Pete Schwaba, host of PBS Wisconsin's Director's Cut.
Tonight, we bring you a legal drama
set in the world of the opioid crisis
in the film The Bitter Pill.
The film chronicles the last 40 years of profits
for insurance companies
who have made hundreds of billions of dollars
off the epidemic.
The crisis has left a wake of tragedy, addiction, and loss,
not to mention economic crisis for an entire community.
You might see some similarities The Bitter Pill has
to Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird
or a John Grisham novel in that its leading character,
attorney Paul Farrell, is a small-town lawyer
who takes on legal titans.
Farrell brings a massive civil lawsuit
against Big Pharma companies
in an effort to hold them accountable
after he saw what the opioid epidemic did to his hometown.
His goal?
To recover enough funds to make an impact on those affected.
Farrell knew firsthand the dangers of the problem,
as West Virginia has the highest opioid addiction rate
in the country.
Even closer to home for Farrell, in Cabell County where he lives,
20% of the babies are born addicted to opioids.
Farrell's efforts garner the attention of other law firms
from around the country who join forces with him,
making the case, which took over seven years to complete,
the biggest civil litigation case in U.S. history.
The result will shock you.
The film does not pull punches in picking a side
and outing insurance companies
through the voices of the plaintiffs.
In one scene, an attorney uncovers emails
between one pharmaceutical company's employees,
where they exchange jokes about OxyContin for kids
and laugh about getting FDA approval in the hopes
that it will bring the company billions more in profits
from another generation of addicts.
In the emails back and forth,
the employees also share a mock cereal box of Sugar Smacks.
On the box, it just says "Smack,"
and has a picture of the Sugar Smacks frog
holding a syringe on the box cover.
The Bitter Pill is directed by Clay Tweel.
Tweel is a highly-decorated documentarian
whose films have won awards at major film festivals
and received national attention.
Tweel prefers to make documentaries
that are character-based, and Farrell provided him a noble,
driven, Atticus Finch-type leading man.
The director had a connection to Farrell
in that his father was a partner at same West Virginia law firm.
Tweel has been a busy guy over the last 15 years,
directing or producing 12 films
and two crime docuseries.
Now sit back and watch how one person's outrage
can turn to passion and spark change.
The Bitter Pill starts now on PBS Wisconsin,
your home for independent film.