Pain Hustlers Ending Explained: Who is Liza Drake and Why Did She Accept the Job Offer?
The film Pain Hustlers brings to light a controversial topic that has affected the United States: the opioid epidemic. The plot tells the story of Liza Drake, a woman who, amid financial difficulties, accepts a job offer that will change her life upside down. Although it has a star cast and high-quality production, Pain Hustlers is not exactly exciting and deserves a more in-depth analysis. In this article, we will explore the main events of the film, analyze the development of the characters, and reveal the outcome of the story.
Based on a 2018 New York Times Magazine article, The Pain Hustlers by Evan Hughes and his subsequent novel, The Hard Sell, Pain Hustlers is a Netflix film directed by David Yates that follows Liza Drake (Emily Blunt), a woman who agrees to work for a bankrupt pharmaceutical company to support her daughter and pay for her risky operation. While working at a nightclub, Liza Drake, who is a single mother living in her sister’s garage with her daughter Phoebe and mother Jackie, meets Pete Brenner (Chris Evans), a senior executive at the pharmaceutical company Zanna Pharma who offers him what appears to be a dream job. Although Liza has some doubts, she makes up her mind when her sister kicks her out of the house and her daughter’s doctor warns her that Phoebe might need an operation that her insurance does not cover. After a brief interview with Pete, he alters her resume and introduces her to her main investor, Dr. Jack Neel, who hires her.
Pain Hustlers: The Story Plot
Liza Drake (Emily Blunt) is a working-class single mother trying to make ends meet – with little success – by working in a strip club. Right here, she meets the pharmaceutical representative Pete Brenner (Chris Evans) who, impressed by the woman’s communication skills, offers her to work with him at Zanna Therapeutics, a pharmaceutical company directed by the eccentric Jack Neel (Andy Garcia). Liza’s job is as simple in words as it is complex in reality: she manages to get doctors to prescribe Lonafen, a drug for the treatment of cancer pain based on Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid. Despite her inexperience in the sector, the woman immediately proves herself to be extremely capable and she takes Zanna Therapeutics from the risk of bankruptcy to being one of the main companies in the pharmaceutical market. Despite the sudden success and the replenished bank account, however, Liza will soon find herself faced with the truth of the facts: Lonafen is not as harmless as they would like to believe, and she could be an accomplice to a criminal conspiracy.
Pain Hustlers chooses to tell this plague from the point of view of the character of Liza Drake, played by Emily Blunt (recently seen alongside Cillian Murphy in Oppenheimer). A single mother with a daughter suffering from epileptic seizures (Chloe Coleman), Liza tries to make ends meet by working as a lap dancer in a not-exactly-chic club. It is right at the bar counter of her squalid workplace where Pete Brenner (Chris Evans), a representative of a pharmaceutical company, notices her exceptional persuasive skills. The man immediately enlists her, with the promise of handsome profits, to convince doctors to prescribe Lonafen, a powerful opioid created by Dr., to their patients. Jack Neel (Andy Garcia). Success comes quickly, between sports cars and lavish company parties, but things soon get out of hand: greed leads the company to push for the drug additive to be prescribed even for minor pathologies, resulting in a disproportionate number of people enslaved from addiction, with even lethal consequences.
Pain Hustlers Ending Explained: What Happened to Liza, Pete and Jack?
Pain Hustlers is presented as a mockumentary and shows how Liza and Pete get Zanna Pharma out of bankruptcy and into huge profits. Although she has a hard time getting her first doctor to prescribe Lonafen, Liza takes over the market and solves her financial problems. After getting Dr. Nathan Lydell to prescribe Lonafen to his patients, the protagonists of the Netflix film organize speaking programs to recruit more doctors and hire new sales representatives, including Liza’s mother, who is in charge of the forgotten markets. Before long, Liza is promoted to national sales director, while Pete is named the new director of operations.
But things improve to the point that the company tops the stock market and once again Liza and Pete are promoted, she to vice president of marketing and he to CEO. However, the company boss’s ambition reaches such a point that he suggests paying doctors to prescribe Lonafen not only to cancer patients but also to people experiencing any type of pain. Up until that point, Liza was convinced that she was helping cancer patients with the drug she was promoting. Jack Neel’s new request changes her perspective a little, but her daughter’s ambition and illness make her ignore all of her warnings. However, she can’t keep doing it when patients start to become addicted and overdose.
After more reports of Lonafen overdose deaths surface and Dr. Nathan Lydell is arrested, Liza decides to report Zanna to the authorities, explaining that she helped form the speaker program and the bribery program, and even tried to make them legal. But Liza’s word against Jack and Pete is not enough, the officer in charge asks her for evidence, something difficult to obtain considering that Jack does not allow people to approach him with cell phones nor does he answer emails. Although Drake makes a plan to get some documents, Pete notices her, stops her, and warns Jack.
Jack’s lawyers get Pete and Eric Paley to testify that the company’s owner had no knowledge of the conspiracy, so Lucy stands to lose at trial. However, emails between him and Jackie help her prove Neel’s involvement. At the end of Pain Hustlers Dr. Lydell, Pete, and Jack are sent to prison. Although it was recommended that Liza not go to prison due to her cooperation, the judge sentenced her for her participation. Upon leaving, she created a small skincare brand with her mother and her sister. In addition, she is based on the events that inspired the Netflix film.
Who is Liza Drake and Why Did She Accept the Job Offer?
The story of Pain Hustlers unfolds in the form of a mockumentary, with characters from the film appearing in interviews that appear to be being conducted by a film crew. It all starts in 2011, in Florida, where we meet the protagonist, Liza Drake, struggling to balance her finances. Liza is a single mother to her teenage daughter, Phoebe, and is failing to provide a comfortable life for both of them. After a breakup and the loss of her business, she finds herself in a precarious situation. Initially, she lives in her sister Andy’s garage space, which ends up causing conflicts. Liza and Phoebe leave the garage and move to a cheap motel in a hostile and dangerous neighborhood.
Liza’s mother, Jackie, remains in touch but is also struggling to fulfill her dream of selling beauty products that she makes herself. Liza works at a nightclub as a dancer, a situation that makes her uncomfortable and insecure. During one of her nights at work, she meets Pete Brenner, a pharmaceutical executive at the company Zanna. Impressed by Liza’s wit and charm, Pete offers her the opportunity to earn one hundred thousand dollars working with him. Liza, skeptical due to similar proposals in the past, initially pays no attention to Pete. However, her precarious financial situation leads her to reconsider. With her car being towed due to late payments, Liza finds herself stuck. Determined to improve her life and make a difference, she decides to accept Pete’s offer and enter the world of pharmaceuticals.
How Does Liza Save Zanna Pharma?
When Liza joins Zanna Pharmaceuticals, Pete and the company’s lead investor, Dr. Jack Neel, are desperate to attract new investors. The company was facing losses and was unable to convince doctors to prescribe its drugs, a common problem in the opioid industry. Even though its painkiller, Lonafen, was considered the least addictive and had the fewest side effects by a renowned researcher, doctors continued to prefer opioids over its competitors. Without prior knowledge of these problems, Liza is hired and has to prove herself in her first seven days on the job. Her mission is to convince at least one doctor to prescribe Lonafen to patients.
However, Liza soon realizes that convincing the doctors will not be an easy task. The film Pain Hustlers portrays medical representatives as individuals who use personal favors and personal impressions to achieve success rather than professional skills. Doctors often prefer younger, more attractive representatives than Liza, making their job even more difficult. Additionally, she faces the pressure of convincing doctors to prescribe Lonafen even to patients who don’t have cancer and don’t need such potent opioids.
Why Does Liza Change Her Mind About Her Employers?
At first, Liza believes she is doing genuine good by representing a medicine that relieves pain for cancer patients and by creating jobs. However, as allegations and rumors about Zanna and Lonafen emerge, Liza refuses to believe them. It fails to consider that the drug is causing people to become addicted and that the company is using questionable means to make a profit. The film portrays Liza in an overly idealistic manner, as someone who believes Zanna has good intentions despite evidence to the contrary. She does not dispute the fact that doctors were being paid indirectly or receiving favors in exchange for prescribing Lonafen. Liza insists on highlighting a study that stated that Lonafen was the least addictive opioid with the fewest side effects, but this study was biased and biased.
Pain Hustlers suggests that Pete Brenner was always under the impression that the company was doing nothing wrong. Another possibility raised is that Liza perhaps knew about all the illicit practices, but acted as if she were innocent to avoid problems. However, the turning point for Liza comes when she witnesses the devastating effects that Zanna and Lonafen have on ordinary people. A neighbor at the motel where she lived dies due to his dependence on Lonafen, which affects her deeply. Additionally, she feels guilty when her mother sleeps with Jack Neel to increase her commissions. Liza realizes that she is selling her mother to the company. Her disillusionment makes her realize that she is working for a corrupt corporation. She decides to report the company to the authorities and provides incriminating evidence. Liza manages to steal some documents that prove the involvement of Pete, Neel, and other company executives in illicit practices.
What is Liza’s Fate in the End?
Although the investigation focuses on most of Zanna Pharma’s employees, the main investor, Jack Neel, manages to avoid arrest as there is not enough evidence against him. Meanwhile, Liza gets the money for Phoebe’s surgery, which is successful. During a conversation with her mother, Jackie, Liza realizes that the detailed email messages her mother sent to Neel, requesting equal commissions as the other women, contain information about the sales representatives’ illegal practices. Because Neel responded to these emails, it is clear that he knew of the irregularities. These emails become evidence and lead to Jack Neel’s arrest. During the trial, Liza admits that she accepted the job at the company just for the money, and the prosecutor asks her for leniency. However, the court found that Liza’s actions deserved a sentence of fifteen months in prison. The film Pain Hustlers ends with Liza’s release from prison, and she starts her own business with her mother, Jackie, selling beauty products. Some Zanna sales representatives also joined this new venture to earn a living.
