Coma

A thriller set in a hospital. Susan Wheeler is a surgical resident. A close friend comes in for a simple operation and does not wake from it; she is left brain dead. There is no error in the records and everyone calls it an unfortunate case. Susan looks at the statistics. In the same hospital, in the same theatre, under similar conditions, there are other cases, and the number is higher than it should be. When she asks, she meets a wall. Her superiors accuse her of being emotional, her partner tells her to think about her career and the administration closes the subject. She keeps investigating alone. The trail takes her to an institution outside the city where patients in long-term comas are cared for. The tension is institutional: nobody shouts, nobody threatens and every answer sounds reasonable. That is exactly why it is unclear where the danger will come from. The source is Robin Cook's novel. Geneviève Bujold plays Susan and Michael Douglas her partner. Richard Widmark and Rip Torn are in the cast, and Tom Selleck appears in a small part. Michael Crichton directed and wrote it; he trained in medicine, and the technical detail of the hospital scenes comes from that. A solid choice for anyone who likes medical thrillers and the conspiracy films of the 1970s. Before you watch, know this: the film uses footage of surgery directly.