This picture is a little gem. It hasn't special effects; there are not technological advances, and in this sense you could say this is an old fashioned work. And nowadays that's by itself, signifies something.
The story deals about the ethic deficit in which the world is immersed. Is the health susceptible to be considered another market service by itself? Or perhaps if the goal of any enterprise related with such delicate subject as the public health is reduced to a double statement: maximum benefits and reduction of costs?
Laura Dern makes a convincing portrait of a doctor who is incapable to understand the mechanism of the actual state of things and decides to act like a voice in the desert. She is not convinced about certain rational decisions permeated of the sweet smell of the success: Somerset Maugham stated once: "In times of hypocrisy, the sincerity is considered as cynicism". So our lonely character seems to have chosen the most difficult way: she argues and refuses what in her ethic is out of context and becomes immediately in "The enemy of the people" .
She renounces to her two previous jobs due serious painful cases that simply don't follow the established rules.
Passionate script, that will leave you thinking for a long, long time.
This movie means to Laura Dern her best artistic achievement to date.
"If we do the things just for believing that other person expects we do it, and he or she expects because he believes it that we expect that he expects it, we'll finish doing everything what nobody wants to do, which it is a ridicule way of proceeding" Georges Bernard Shaw

Excellent movie, gives one an interesting view of the insurance industry and the value the companies see in human life.

Excellent Film! Told the sad truth about corporate greed, exploitation of US Managed Care, HMO system for corporate profit. Unethical deneial of critical medical services to patients. Highly recommend this film. Laura Dern deserves ***** for this movie. Showtime and Pamouunt Network Television deserve ***** for making this film.

Peeno is a physician and a renowned critic of the way US health maintenance organizations boost profits by depriving patients of care. She has provided evidence for American patients suing HMOs; testified to the US congress; and spoken to the Romanow Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada.

Having had my own personal horror of the HMO system. This movie cuts right to my heart. A doctor inform with a heart transplant he was sure he could have saved my mom's life. Her HMO, refused to approved the claim...6 mths later she died.

And it saddened me for some to call it a chick flick. To look down on Peeno stating it took her long enought to come forward....but,the bottom line is.... she did... how many others have had the courage to do so? I salute you, your voice and your movie Dr.Linda Peeno.

Laura Dern stars as a doctor who married and had kids before she was ever able to practice medicine. Her first efforts to return to the work place lead her to becoming a medical reviewer for a large HMO. There she is told she will help to stop the practice of doctors ordering (and making the insurance companies pay for) unneeded tests and procedures. It becomes clear that in fact she is there to rubber stamp denials and add an aura of legitimacy to a the practice of denying people the services their premiums paid for. Despite her stress and unhappiness her husband has her stay on in order to supplement the family income. Only after she has to make a life or death call does the lead begin to realize that the system itself is flawed and cannot be fixed from the inside.

As she expresses her concerns publicly the family starts to fall apart and the increased stress almost make Dr. Peeno give up the good fight. Her moment of truth comes with the help of two people - a nun and a former nurse now a victim of the system she once worked for.

This is a chick flick based on real events about the most naive person ever to graduate medical school. It was hard to believe that it took so long for the light to dawn on Dern�s character about so many things in her life. But when she started to take action she proved to be capable and interesting.