Genre: Thriller
Director: Jeff Nichols
Writer: Matt Parker
Based on the novel by Robin Cook
Cast: Elizabeth Olsen, Oscar Isaac, Richard Gere, Viola Davis, Jack Reynor, Mireille Enos, Jeremy Piven, Ed Begley Jr.
Plot: Susan Wheeler (Elizabeth Olsen) is at long-term care facility visiting her father Orem (Ed Begley Jr.), who is suffering from Alzheimer's. She tells him that she is excited to start her first day as a surgical intern at Dallas Central Hospital, the same hospital he worked at for decades. He looks at her, but doesn't seem to recognize her. She gives him a kiss on the forehead and leaves.
Susan arrives at the hospital and meets one of the other interns, Paul Quinn (Jack Reynor). He acts very flirtatiously toward her until he is interrupted by the chief surgical resident, Dr. Mark Bellows (Oscar Isaac). He tells Quinn to cool it with the flirting, pointing out that Susan doesn't appear very interested anyways. As Bellows leads his new interns around the surgical unit of Dallas Central Hospital, they see a comatose patient being wheeled out of the hospital. Susan asks why a comatose patient would be leaving the hospital, and her question is answered by the hospital's Chief of Surgery, Dr. Theodore Harris (Richard Gere), who tells her that the patient in question slipped into a coma during a recent surgery and is now being sent to the Jefferson Institute. Susan comments that the name sounds familiar, and Harris explains that it is a special facility designed to care for comatose patients. Suddenly the doors fly open and a gunshot victim is pushed through on a gurney. The paramedics yell that the patient is starting to bleed out. Bellows tells Susan and Quinn to scrub up as he rushes the patient into an operating room.
Inside the operating room, Susan helps Bellows work to stop the bleeding while Bellows removes the bullet from the patient. Bellows explains now that the bullet is out, that they need to control the bleeding and make sure the bullet didn't cause any injury to the nearby organs. Arno stands off to the side, clearly uneasy with the amount of blood. Bellows says that everything looks good and seals the wound with a suture. Bellows commends Susan on a job well done and offers to buy her a post-surgery coffee. Arno turns toward a garbage can and throws up into it.
When Susan begins work at the hospital the next day, she decides to go and check on the gunshot victim to see how he is doing. When she arrives to his room, she finds Bellows and Harris talking with Mrs. Emerson (Mireille Enos), the director of the Jefferson Institute. Susan asks what is going on and Harris informs her that the patient slipped into a coma overnight and the family has opted to place him in the care of the Jefferson Institute. Susan asks Bellows how he became comatose, and he tells her that he isn't sure since the patient was in stable condition, albeit still unconscious from the anesthesia. Harris assures them they did everything by the book, but that sometimes things happen that are out of their control.
Susan and Bellows discuss the patient over lunch in the cafeteria. She is still bothered by how the patient went into a coma saying that the odds of such a coma have to be somewhere around 1 to 100,000, but DCH those odds seem to be especially high. Bellows asks if she is suggesting that someone at the hospital is purposely inducing patients into comatose states. Susan nods her head. Bellows agrees that the number of comatose patients does seem a bit high and their patient should not have slipped into a coma following a successful surgery, but isn't sure what is different about their hospital than any other hospital around. Susan suggests that the Jefferson Institute could have something to do with it. After all, if patients don't go become comatose, the Jefferson Institute would have no purpose. Susan and Bellows end their conversation as the Chief of Psychiatry, Dr. Gina Moreland (Viola Davis), sits down next to them. She introduces herself to Susan and tells her that she trained under her father years ago. Moreland says that Orem was a great doctor, and hopefully that trait was passed down to Susan.
While making her rounds, Susan ducks into the operating room and notices that something looks off about the patient oxygen line. She takes a picture on her phone. Suddenly the Chief of Anesthesiology, Dr. George Nelson (Jeremy Piven), enters the room and asks her what she thinks she's doing around the anesthesia equipment. Susan says she was just trying to figure out why her patient slipped into a coma following surgery. Nelson glares at her and tells her that it could not possibly be due to his equipment as it is all top of the line. Susan quickly leaves the operating room, bumping into Quinn in the hall. Susan apologizes, but Quinn just keeps moving. Susan decides to follow Quinn down the hallways of the hospital, eventually watching as he enters Dr. Moreland's office.
Susan shows the picture of the anesthesia equipment to Bellows and he quickly notices that the oxygen line is not connected to the oxygen tank, but rather a different unmarked tank. Susan asks him what he thinks could be in the tank, and Bellows suggests possibly carbon monoxide. Bellows tells Susan that he thinks they need to take their suspicions to someone who can do something about it and suggests Dr. Harris. Susan is wary, but Bellows vouches for Harris.
That night, Bellows and Susan arrive at Harris' house. They apologize to Harris for interrupting his evening, but they felt it couldn't wait. They show him the picture, and Harris agrees with Bellows' assessment. Harris wonders aloud why someone would be tampering with the anesthesia equipment. Susan asks him about the Jefferson Institute. Harris says that he hasn't had many dealings with their group or the director, Mrs. Emerson, but he knows that they have a contract with the hospital so that the they will refer the family's of patients to the Jefferson Institute for the long term care of their comatose loved ones. Bellows asks who at the hospital has dealings with the institute, and Harris tells them that he heard that Dr. Moreland was one of the original investors in the Jefferson Institute, so she may have the motivation, but not the access to the operating room. Susan mentions that Dr. Nelson confronted her as she was taking the picture and says that he may not have the obvious motivation, but he certainly has access to the operating rooms as well as the anesthesia equipment.
After they leave Dr. Harris' house, Bellows offers to drive Susan home. When they arrive at her place, Susan kisses Bellows and invites him inside. Susan pours a couple glasses of wine for the two of them and they take a seat on the couch. Susan notice a picture on the wall of Susan and her father and asks how he's doing. She says he doesn't remember her most days and thinks her mother is still alive. Bellows tells her about the time that her father saved his ass during his first surgery at DCH. He knicked an artery and froze. Dr. Wheeler pushed him aside and stopped the bleeding, saving the patient's life. Susan tells Bellows that she doesn't want to talk about her father anymore. He asks her what she does want to talk about. She says she doesn't want to talk, and climbs onto his lap and begins kissing him. Bellows undresses Susan, and they have sex on the sofa. In the morning, Bellows leaves Susan a note and a freshly cooked omelet before he leaves for the hospital.
On her day off, Susan shows up at the Jefferson Institute and finds that they are giving a tour to prospective clients. Susan tags along on the tour, where the guide presents the facility as an advanced, low-cost care center for comatose patients. During the tour, Susan sneaks away from the group and enters a long corridor with comatose bodies lining the walls, attached through metal rods inserted into their bones. Susan is aghast at what she is seeing, but continues down the corridor until she comes across an operating room. She looks inside and sees Mrs. Emerson instructing surgeons on what organs they need to take out of a body on the operating table. She watches as they remove and carefully bag up the patient's heart and liver. Susan takes a picture with her phone, but her phone makes a shutter sound effect, alerting them to her presence. Susan runs back down the corridor and out of the building.
Back at the hospital, Bellows watches Dr. Nelson as he sets up the anesthesia equipment in an operating room. When he notices the unmarked tank plugged into the oxygen line, Bellows confronts Nelson, who insists he had an intern named Quinn grab the tank for him, and doesn't know what Bellows is talking about. Bellows suggests that if Nelson really doesn't think there's anything wrong with the tank, he should test it out. Nelson shrugs and hooks a mask up to the tank. Once he turns the valve, the contents of the tank cause him to quickly lose consciousness. Bellows quickly performs CPR on Nelson, restoring his consciousness. Nelson wants to know what was in the oxygen tank, and Bellows says he does too.
Once back in her car, she calls Bellows as she starts driving, but he doesn't answer. Suddenly another car crashes into her vehicle, sending her car off of the round and down into a ditch. Susan manages to free herself from her totaled car and begins crawling away from the wreckage. Quinn makes his way down toward Susan. He grabs her by the hair and begins dragging her toward his vehicle. Susan grabs a shard of metal from the ground and stabs Quinn in the leg with it. Quinn falls to the ground beside Susan. He pulls out a gun, but before he can shoot Susan, she stabs him in the throat with the metal shard.
Bellows grabs the unmarked oxygen tank and is going to get it tested.He enters an elevator to head down to the basement of the hospital where the lab is, only to find Dr. Moreland already in the elevator. She greets him and asks what he has in the tank. Bellows looks down at it and says it's just something that needs testing. Moreland pulls out a syringe and injects a fluid into Bellows' neck. Bellows swings the tank at Moreland, hitting her in the head and knocking her out, before passing out himself.
Still unable to get in contact with Bellows, Susan heads to Harris' house to tell him what has happened. He informs her that he has already spoken to Bellows, who said he would come over after taking the oxygen tank for testing. Susan is still rattled from having killed Quinn in self-defense. Harris offers her a drink. Susan nods. While Harris is fixing a drink at his bar, he slips a small vial worth of liquid into the drink. Harris hands the drink to Susan, who quickly drinks it. Susan starts to experience extreme stomach pains and her vision gets blurry. Just before she passes out, she sees Mrs. Emerson enter the room.
Susan and Bellows wake up strapped to tables in the operating room of the Jefferson Institute. They see Moreland, Harris and Emerson waiting for them. Harris commends the two on coming so close to figuring everything out. He looks at a clipboard and then asks Susan if she's an organ donor. Moreland and Emerson laugh. Susan tries to appeal to Harris and Moreland, saying that they worked with her father for years. Moreland informs Susan that Orem Wheeler helped them start the Jefferson Institute. Bellows looks at Susan and motions his head toward a scalpel near her. She notices it and begins trying to reach for it. Bellows begins berating Harris, Moreland and Emerson for being evil. Emerson looks through a list of clients and comments that Bellows has the same blood type of a client who needs a new heart. Harris says that's perfect and begins scrubbing up, as Moreland and Emerson leave to watch the "surgery" from the observation room. Susan is finally able to reach the scalpel which she uses to cut her restraints. As Harris turns around, ready for surgery, Susan slashes his throat with the scalpel. As Harris begins profusely bleeding from his neck, Susan cuts Bellows free. Bellows grabs Harris' phone and uses it to call the police. When the police arrive, they arrest Dr. Moreland and Mrs. Emerson. Susan and Bellows leave the Jefferson Institute still shaken by the events.
The next time Susan goes to visit her father at the long-term care facility, she takes Bellows with her. While Orem doesn't recognize Susan, he does recognize Bellows. Orem asks Bellows how the patient with the severed artery is doing. Bellows looks at Susan, unsure of what to say. Susan tells her father that the patient was doing great. Orem smiles and says that saving a life is always gratifying.
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