Pain Hustlers (2023) • Netflix — mildly pleasurable but non-addictive

Netflix’s latest addition to the growing body of screen drama about the opioid crisis, Pain Hustlers, comes with promising credentials. Director David Yates helmed the highly regarded BBC political series State of Play (2003), though most of his film work has been in the Harry Potter and <a href="https://medium.com/framerated/fantastic-beasts-the-secrets-of-dumbledore-2022-d2a1d57f8b3c" rel="noopener">Fantastic Beasts</a> franchises. Screenwriter Wells Tower is a celebrated young author of fiction and journalism, and Evan Hughes’s book, on which the film is based, has been positively received. Despite the recent influx of productions on the opioid issue, including acclaimed documentaries and fictional works like Hulu’s Dopesick (2021), the flawed but interesting <a href="https://medium.com/framerated/cherry-2021-apple-tv-bbfaed97dab9" rel="noopener">Cherry</a> (2021), Netflix’s own recent Painkiller (2023), and even its adaptation of <a href="https://medium.com/framerated/the-fall-of-the-house-of-usher-a-dark-boring-and-unnecessary-adaptation-bcfe617311d3" rel="noopener">The Fall of the House of Usher</a> (2023), the subject has yet to receive a definitive treatment. <a href="https://medium.com/framerated/pain-hustlers-mildly-pleasurable-but-non-addictive-2329f776df02">Click Here</a>