Seeing the opioid epidemic through COVID-19: Ambivalent aesthetics in The Family Statement (2023)
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Date
2026-09-04
Authors
Harries, Rhiannon
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Publisher
Film and Screen Media, University College Cork
Published Version
Abstract
This piece examines the short film The Family Statement (Grace Harper and Kate Stonehill, 2023) as a response to the US opioid epidemic shaped by the production constraints of the COVID-19 pandemic. Reconfigured during lockdown from a planned vérité feature into a fifteen-minute short, the film centres on WhatsApp messages exchanged among members of the Sackler family and recovered from bankruptcy proceedings against Purdue Pharma. Superimposed over static exterior images and intercut with observational footage, the messages foreground tensions between care and harm. Situating the film within contemporary screen representations of the opioid crisis, I argue that its fragmentary digital form registers a broader ambivalence shared by the pandemic and the epidemic: a crisis of trust in institutions and structures that promise care while exposing individuals and groups to unequally distributed harm. By resisting documentary’s “mode of emergency,” the film offers a meditation on neoliberal family structures, systems of care and the politics of digital mediation.
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Citation
Harries, R. (2026) 'Seeing the opioid epidemic through COVID-19: Ambivalent aesthetics in The Family Statement (2023)', Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media, 31, pp. 10–16. https://doi.org/10.33178/alpha.31.01