AllMovie

With its high-concept premise and shoestring budget, this indie drama could have been a train wreck. Instead, writer/director John Baumgartner has crafted a smart, timely parable -- "issue filmmaking" at its best. With minimal fuss, his script establishes its pharmacological conceit and then gets down to the essence of how a "cure" for homosexuality would affect actual people. As protagonist Tim, Jonathan Slavin gives a sturdy performance, establishing his character's essential dilemma without making him either a martyr or a jerk. Tim may hurt himself and others in his quest for love and a "normal" life, but he's never less than sympathetic. Some of the peripheral characters start out as stereotypes -- the fag-hag, the promiscuous best friend -- but most eventually become flesh and blood. The script may telegraph the parallels between its mythical gay cure and the antidepressants currently taken by millions of people, but the metaphor is apt. At its core, Hard Pill grapples with the question of whether behavior-modifying drugs allow people to function happily in mainstream society or strip them of their very selfhood.