Julia Stiles Archives – CULTURE MIX

Review: ‘Orphan: First Kill,’ starring Isabelle Fuhrman, Rossif Sutherland and Julia Stiles

August 19, 2022

by Carla Hay

Isabelle Fuhrman in “Orphan: First Kill” (Photo by Steve Ackerman/Paramount Pictures)

Directed by William Brent Bell

Culture Representation: Taking place in Darien, Connecticut, and briefly in Estonia and Moscow, the horror movie “Orphan: First Kill” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans and one Asian) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A female serial killer in her 30s, who has a medical condition that makes her look like a child, escapes from a psychiatric facility in Estonia, steals a missing child’s identity, and pretends to be the long-lost daughter of a wealthy family in the United Sates.

Culture Audience: “Orphan: First Kill” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of 2009’s “Orphan” movie and any horror movie that puts more importance in staging murder scenes than in crafting a good story.

Rossif Sutherland and Julia Stiles in “Orphan: First Kill” (Photo by Steve Ackerman/Paramount Pictures)

“Orphan: First Kill” is a horror movie prequel whose very existence is a spoiler for 2009’s “Orphan.” In “Orphan,” the serial killer appears to be an orphaned girl but (spoiler alert), she’s really a woman in her 30s with a rare medical condition that makes her look like a child. “Orphan: First Kill” is a poorly conceived prequel that spoils all the fun for people who don’t know how 2009’s “Orphan” ends. And all the stupid plot holes in “Orphan: First Kill” spoil any fun in the movie’s new plot twist, which isn’t very clever.

“Orphan: First Kill” is directed by William Brent Bell, who has a history of directing awful horror movies, including 2016’s “The Boy,” 2020’s “Brahms: The Boy II” and 2021’s “Separation.” “Orphan: First Kill” (written by David Coggeshall) isn’t the worst of the bunch. But as a horror movie, this stale flick treats its audience as absolute idiots. And there are long stretches of “Orphan: First Kill” that are very boring.

People who don’t know about the surprise twist ending in “Orphan” will have it revealed almost immediately in “Orphan: First Kill,” which takes place in 2007—two years before the story in “Orphan.” The movie opens in February 2007, at the Saarne Institute, an in-patient psychiatric facility in Estonia. (“Orphan: First Kill” was actually filmed in Winnipeg, Canada.) The most notorious resident of the Saarne Institute is Leena Klammer (played by Isabelle Fuhrman), a violent and sadistic woman in her early 30s who has hypopituitarism, a rare hormonal disorder that stunts her physical growth, so that she appears to be a child who’s about 10 or 11 years old.

In “Orphan,” actress Furhman really was in that 10-to-11-year-old age range when she played the Leena character, who created an alias named Esther before she was adopted by an unsuspecting American family. Leena/Esther’s fate is shown at the end of “Orphan,” which is why this serial killer character got a prequel movie instead of a sequel movie. In “Orphan: First Kill,” Furhman’s real-life adult face is de-aged through visual effects and put on a child actress’ body. Kennedy Irwin and Sadie Lee are the actresses who had the roles of being the Leena body doubles.

The de-aging visual effects (which are adequate) in “Orphan: First Kill” are at least more convincing than the movie’s sloppily written screenplay. The rest of the movie’s visual effects look very cheap and tacky, especially in a scene where a blazing fire breaks out in a house, and the fire looks very phony. (This fire scene is briefly shown in the “Orphan: First Kill” trailer.) Except for the plot twist, almost everything in “Orphan: First Kill” is just like a lot of formulaic slasher movies.

At the Saarne Institute, an art therapy teacher named Anna Troyev (played by Gwendolyn Collins) arrives as a newly hired instructor for Leena. As soon as Anna gets there, the facility is on high emergency alert because Leena is nowhere to be found. Saarne Institute supervisor Dr. Novotny (played by David Lawrence Brown) is giving Anna a tour of the facility when this emergency happens.

Dr. Novotny explains to Anna: “Leena is our most dangerous patient. Your predecessor underestimated her and ignored protocol.” Viewers never really find out what happened to Anna’s predecessor, but it obviously wasn’t good. Later, Dr. Novotny describes Leena this way: “She’s an exceptional con artist.”

Anna eventually finds Leena in another room. Leena is taken away, but it isn’t long before Leena goes on a deadly rampage. And this is when the movie starts to get really moronic. Leena is supposedly the “most dangerous patient” at the institute. But she’s given a lot of free reign with the bare minimum of supervision, even after her temporary disappearance that caused a panic at the institute.

There’s a scene where Leena starts to seduce a security guard, who is alone in a room with Leena. What kind of incompetent psychiatric facility would have only one employee alone in a room with “most dangerous patient” Leena? What kind of incompetent training did this security guard have in not being warned that Leena is an “exceptional con artist”? This is what happens in an incompetently made horror movie like “Orphan: First Kill.”

What Leena does to this security guard should come as no surprise. And before Leena escapes from the facility, more than one person ends up dead at this institute, which barely did anything to protect its employees and patients from the institute’s “most dangerous patient.” There’s another adult female patient who sort of helps Leena escape, but don’t expect to find out anything about this accomplice.

You’d think it would make big international news that this very unusual and notorious killer (an adult who looks like a child) escaped from a psychiatric institution. But no. Not in this world of “Orphan: First Kill,” where it’s supposed to be 2007, but the lack of news coverage of this massacre is so unrealistic and behind-the-times, you’d think it was 1907, long before the Internet and television existed.

However, the Internet does exist in this world of “Orphan: First Kill,” because after Leena escapes, she uses the Internet to look up reports and databases of missing children. It’s how she finds out about a missing American girl named Esther Albright from Darien, Connecticut. Esther disappeared four years earlier, and would be about 10 or 11 years old in 2007. Leena has a physical remblance to the 10- or 11-year-old girl who Esther would be if Esther is still alive. And so, Leena decides she’s going to steal Esther’s identity.

For reasons that are never explained in this dimwitted movie, Leena briefly ends up in Moscow. Don’t bother to get a explanation for how Leena was able to pass through the borders of another country as a criminal who’s wanted for murder. Somehow, viewers are supposed to believe that no one in Russia could’ve possibly heard the bizarre news that Estonia (a country that’s right next to Russia) has an escaped, serial killer woman who looks like an innocent girl.

Leena certainly doesn’t go into hiding, because she brazenly puts her Esther Albright fake identity plan into action. Soon after showing up in Moscow, she claims to be long-lost Esther. Leena is found by a Moscow cop while she’s sitting alone on a park swing at night. She concocts a story that she is Esther Albright, and she was kidnapped by a woman who brought her to Estonia. Leena makes up a vague lie that the woman who kidnapped her is now dead, but no one checks to verify this story, or even ask for the name of the woman. Leena/Esther can speak fluent English, but she has an Estonian accent.

And the next thing you know, the real Esther Albright’s family is contacted in the United States. Tricia Albright (played by Julia Stiles) and Allen Albright (played by Rossif Sutherland) are a wealthy married couple who are Esther’s parents. Allen and Tricia live in Darien with their 16-year-old son Gunnar Albright (played by Matthew Finlan), who is a star on his school’s fencing team. Tricia is the only one in the family to go to Moscow to identify the person who claims to be Esther.

Tricia brings “Esther” home to Darien. Allen and Gunnar have an awkward reunion with this person whom they don’t recognize as their long-lost family member. Gunnar is the most skeptical of the person in the home who is claiming to be his sister Esther. It’s a reminiscent of “Orphan,” where the older brother was also the family member who was the most suspicious about the person living as his sister in the family home.

During a session with child therapist Dr. Segar (played by Samantha Walkes), the doctor explains that Esther’s physical features could have changed over the past four years. It’s yet another plot hole: This evaluation about Esther’s physical appearance is coming from a psychiatrist, not a medical doctor of human biology.

And the real Esther’s physician and dentist are nowhere to be seen in this movie, because those doctors would be able to tell that this Esther is an imposter, based on medical and dental records. The plot twist somewhat explains why Tricia is unconcerned about taking Esther to get any physical check-ups, but it doesn’t explain why Allen is unconcerned about getting any medical professionals to do a physical evaluation of this “long-lost” child.

Esther’s education and where she’s going to school are also never discussed. And apparently, Esther had no friends before she disappeared, because they are never seen in the movie. No one else outside of the family claims to recognize her, which is a story that would easily fall apart under scrutiny from the media and law enforcement. But the movie ignores that logic.

Gunnar notices that the person claiming to be Esther has skills as an illustration artist that are on par with an adult’s skills. Before the real Esther disappeared, Gunnar remembers that she could only draw stick figures. However, these art skills are explained as Esther developing prodigy-level artist talent in the four years since she was gone.

This talent for art is how Leena/Esther eventually wins over Allen, who is also an illustration artist with a shared passion for painting. Allen thinks that Esther inherited her artistc talent from him. Allen is portrayed as a clueless parent in the worst way, blinded by the ego stroking that skilled con artist Leena gives him as innocent-looking Esther.

The re-appearance of Esther, which would make big news in any community in real life, is esentially ignored by the news media in “Orphan: First Kill.” It’s just a lazy way for “Orphan: First Kill” to prevent any logical plotline where reporters would be investigating this sudden re-appearance, thereby making it easier for Leena/Esther’s secret to be revealed. It’s the same preposterous portrayal of the media where “Orphan: First Kill” viewers are supposed to believe that the media in Estonia and nearby Russia couldn’t be bothered to give massive coverage of Leena’s escape from the Saarne Institute after she murdered people there.

Instead, the movie has some dull scenes where Esther is treated like a pesky freak by Gunnar. One night, Tricia and Allen are away from home at a gala event hosted by Tricia. Gunnar decides to throw a party at the house while the parents are gone. Gunnar rejects Esther’s attempts to hang out with Gunnar and his friends. And she tells him, “Go fuck yourself” in front of his pals. Apparently, the “Orphan: First Kill” filmmakers want viewers to think that this scene of a “child” cursing is supposed to be provocative, even though viewers already know she’s not really a child.

In a terribly written horror movie like “Orphan: First Kill,” the Saarne Institute’s pathetic mishandling of Leena’s confinement isn’t the only incompetency on full display. Apparently, the “Orphan: First Kill” filmmakers want viewers to also believe that when someone claiming to be a missing child suddenly appears, DNA tests are not done. It’s another irritating way that so much of the movie’s shoddy plot looks like the “Orphan: First Kill” filmmakers want viewers forget that this movie takes place in 2007, when DNA testing definitely existed.

There’s a half-hearted attempt to verify Esther’s identity through fingerprints, when a police investigator named Detective Donnan (played by Hiro Kanagawa) is the only cop with enough common sense to want to check Esther’s fingerprints. But when Leena/Esther finds out that Detective Donnan (who investigated the real Esther’s disapperance) is suspicious about her real identity, you can easily guess what happens to Detective Donnan. In fact, all of the murders that happen in “Orphan: First Kill” are too easy to predict, which makes everything just a witless retread of “Bad Seed”-ripoff movies.

The plot twist in “Orphan: First Kill” is revealed about halfway through the movie. And it’s a plot twist that’s ripped from tabloid headlines regarding a theory about who caused a real-life, very famous unsolved murder. But in order to believe this plot twist and for certain people to get away with the charade, you’d also have to believe no one in the world would question why Esther’s identity wasn’t verified through DNA, fingerprints and dental records. It’s a plot hole that’s too big for this mindless movie to overcome.

The cast members of “Orphan: First Kill” don’t do much to elevate the ludicrous material that they’ve been given. It’s obvious that the filmmakers are relying heavily on nostalgia for the 2009 “Orphan” movie to get an audience for “Orphan: First Kill.” By the end of “Orphan: First Kill,” there’s nowhere else to go with any prequel stories for Leena/Esther, unless filmmakers want to continue the laughably bad concept that this adult serial killer disguised as a child is able to fly under the radar of the news media and law enforcement after all the massacres she’s committed.

Paramount Pictures released “Orphan: First Kill” in select U.S. cinemas, on Paramount+ and on digital on August 19, 2022. The movie is set for release on Blu-ray and DVD on October 18, 2022.

Review: ‘The God Committee,’ starring Kelsey Grammer, Julia Stiles, Janeane Garofalo, Dan Hedaya and Colman Domingo

July 18, 2021

by Carla Hay

“The God Committee”

Directed by Austin Stark

Culture Representation: Taking place in 2014 and 2021, mostly in New York City, the dramatic film “The God Committee” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some African Americans and Asians) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A hospital committee has a limited time to decide which patient will get a life-or-death heart transplant; years later, one of the committee members ends up being involved in a controversial heart transplant experiment.

Culture Audience: “The God Committee” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in medical dramas about ethical dilemmas and won’t mind too much that there’s a far-fetched sci-fi aspect to the film.

Julia Stiles and Kelsey Grammer in “The God Committee” (Photo by Matt Sakatani Roe/Vertical Entertainment)

The medical drama “The God Committee” has enough gripping suspense that it didn’t need a futuristic subplot about experiments to use pig hearts in heart transplants for humans. Although this type of medical advancement could happen in an unknown future, it’s a part of the movie that’s an unnecessary distraction from the real story: the debates and dealings that go on behind the scenes when medical committees decide which people deserve organ transplants the most.

Austin Stark directed and wrote the screenplay for “The God Committee,” which is based on Mark St. Germain’s play of the same name. Stark does an admirable job of making this story as cinematic as possible, with numerous realistic set pieces and compelling cinematography by Matt Sakatani Roe. There’s nothing in this movie that looks like a theater stage at all.

“The God Committee,” which is set mostly in New York City, jumps back and forth in time between two years: 2014 and 2021. The movie opens in Buffalo, New York, in 2014, when 18-year-old Eli Gurny (played by Daniel Taveras) is shown being accidentally hit and killed by a car while riding his bicycle on the street. He was a healthy organ donor, and his heart has been made available in November 2014 to an unnamed hospital in New York City.

Dr. Andre Boxer (played by Kelsey Grammer), an influential and arrogant surgeon at the hospital, has been told that one of his patients has priority to get the heart. The patient’s name is Selena Vazquez (played by Patricia Mauceri), a widowed grandmother who desperately needs a heart transplant to stay alive. She’s already been told that she’s getting this new heart, so she’s relieved and elated.

However, Dr. Boxer has other plans for that heart, and he shares this information with his much-younger secret lover, another doctor who works at the same hospital. Her name is Dr. Jordan Taylor (played by Julia Stiles), who hasn’t been working at the hospital for very long. Dr. Taylor and Dr. Boxer, who are both unmarried, have agreed to keep their fling a secret because they don’t want it to taint their professional reputations.

The morning after Dr. Boxer and Dr. Taylor have spent the night together at his place, Dr. Boxer tells her that he’s not going to let his patient Selena Vazquez have the young, healthy donor heart that she was promised, because Dr. Boxer thinks that Selena is too old to deserve this heart. Dr. Taylor reacts with dismay and disgust, but Dr. Boxer has already made up his mind. It’s the first sign that Dr. Boxer has a “god complex,” where he knows that he has considerable power to make life-or-death decisions.

Dr. Taylor isn’t just disappointed with Dr. Boxer for this decision. She also seems to want more from the relationship than he’s willing to give her: possibly some real love or at least enough respect to act like he’s not embarrassed to be seen with her in public. When Dr. Boxer drives himself and Dr. Taylor to the hospital, he makes sure to drop off Dr. Taylor far enough away from the hospital entrance, to minimize the chance that any co-workers will see that Dr. Boxer and Dr. Taylor took the same car to work. She reacts by saying in an exasperated tone about their secret relationship: “Boxer, the only person I’m silently judging on in this—whatever this is—is myself.”

Now that Dr. Boxer has made up his mind that his patient Selena Vazquez won’t get the heart, who will get this organ transplant? Most of the movie is a riveting debate among the five people on the hospital’s organ transplant committee who will vote to make the decision. Dr. Taylor is the committtee’s newest member, who will be replacing Dr. Boxer on the committee, much to Dr. Boxer’s annoyance. He’s being replaced because he had already announced his resignation from the hospital to join the private sector.

Dr. Boxer had no say in who would replace him on the hospital’s organ transplant committee. He doesn’t hesitate to let Dr. Taylor and other colleagues know that he doesn’t think Dr. Taylor is a good choice to replace him on the committee because he doesn’t think she has enough experience as a doctor to make organ transplant decisions. Needless to say, it’s very easy to see that the fling between Dr. Taylor and Dr. Boxer isn’t going to last much longer.

Dr. Boxer won’t have long to complain about Dr. Taylor replacing him on the committee, because he will be leaving the hospital in December 2014, just one month after the committee makes the decision about who will get Eli Gurny’s donated heart. In the movie’s scenes that take place in 2021, viewers see what Dr. Boxer was doing for work after leaving the employment of the hospital: He became the lead scientist for an experiment called X-Origins, which would allow organs from different species to be transplanted into each other.

Back in November 2014, the issue of who will get Eli Gurny’s donated heart will be decided in a matter of a few hours. The five people on the organ transplant committee are:

Dr. Boxer, who is stubborn and the most hardline about making decisions based on science, statistics and logic, not sentiment or emotions.
Dr. Taylor, who is compassionate and open to take other factors into consideration besides science, statistics and logic. She also thinks ethics are essential in making her decision.
Dr. Valerie Gilroy (played by Janeane Garofalo), a tough-talking bureaucrat, who is well-aware of the financial problems that the hospital is facing. She’s also feeling pressure because a national medical publication recently downgraded the hospital’s rating, and she wants to bring the rating back up.
Nurse Wilkes (played by Patricia R. Floyd), a somewhat gossipy and very outspoken person, who is most likely to know a patient’s day-to-day actions in the hospital and the most likely to let a patient’s personality be a factor in her decision.
Dr. Lau (played by Peter Kim), a psychiatrist who is very analytical and is the least-talkative committee member.

A sixth member is normally part of the committee, but that person is unvailable. However, a sixth person will be sitting in, but not voting, on this committee’s deliberation over who will get Eli Gurny’s donated heart. This sixth person is Father Charlie Dunbar (played by Colman Domingo), who has been a priest for only three years. Before becoming a priest, Father Dunbar was a defense attorney for 15 years, and he was married.

Father Dunbar’s purpose for sitting in on this meeting is to provide any advice or opinions if anyone on the committee is struggling with moral or ethical issues in making their decision. He’s there because the hospital’s board of directors felt it was necessary that morality and ethics should not be overlooked when making these life-or-death decisions, in case any outside people question the committee’s decisions. Father Dunbar is available to counsel the committee members as a group and on an individual basis.

Dr. Boxer strongly believes that religion or spirituality should play no role in the committee’s medical decisions, so he thinks that Father Dunbar has no business sitting in on any of the committee’s meetings. There’s nothing Dr. Boxer can do about it though except try to ignore what Father Dunbar has to say. Dr. Boxer and Father Dunbar predictably clash during this committee deliberation.

Later, it’s revealed that Father Dunbar left the legal profession under a cloud of suspicion and scandal before he became a priest: He was disbarred in 2006 for doing something illegal that isn’t fully explained in the movie. And he avoided prison by “finding God” and cutting a deal with the district attorney. You can bet that this scandal will be brought up when the inevitable arguments happen during these committee meetings.

There are three patients at the hospital who’ve been moved to the top priority list to get the next available heart transplant. The problem is that due to a shortage of available hearts, only one can get an immediate transplant, and that person will get Eli Gurny’s heart. The other two patients will have to wait for a heart transplant for an undetermined period of time.

The three patients whose future health will be decided by this committee are:

Trip Granger (played by Maurizio Di Meo), a 30-year-old scion who hasn’t done much with his life but party a lot and live off of his rich father’s money. Trip is a recovering drug addict who has recently been admitted to the hospital after having a heart attack. If the toxicology reports find that his heart attack was drug-related, he will be ineligible for the heart transplant, because he’s been hospitalized before for overdosing on cocaine.
Walter Curtis (played by Kyle Moore), a 48-year-old married father who has a steady job, which he needs to help support his family. Those factors are to his advantage in getting the committee members to vote for him. However, what works against Walter is that he’s overweight and bipolar, which are two factors that make some of the committee members think he won’t be a good risk for the heart transplant.
Janet Pike (played by Georgia Buchanan), a 59-year-old wealthy widow with no children and no living relatives. To her advantage, she doesn’t have any problems with her weight or mental health. But to her disadvantage, she doesn’t have a support system of family members; a younger candidate could be considered a better option; and she has expressed resistance/hesitation in the past about getting an organ transplant.

There are more than just statistics that factor into the decision making, so there are plenty of arguments and debates on the committee. Trip’s wealthy mogul father Emmett Granger (played by Dan Hedaya), who accompanied Trip when Trip was taken to the hospital’s emergency room, has met with Dr. Gilroy privately and made a very tempting offer: He’s told her that his non-profit Granger Foundation is willing to donate $25 million to the hospital if Trip gets the heart transplant.

It’s money that the hospital desperately needs for important equipment upgrades and other improvements. Dr. Gilroy is also eager to do anything she can to boost the hospital’s industry rating, which directly impacts her career at the hospital. But what Emmett is offering is essentially a bribe. And would Trip deserve to get the heart transplant, even if no money was being offered?

Certain members of the committee are leaning toward Walter getting the transplant because he has a family to support and he seems to be the most willing to get the transplant. However, other committee members express doubts about Walter because it’s revealed that Walter attempted suicide, before he was diagnosed with being bipolar. He has responded well to his bipolar medication since then, which some people on the committee think is encouraging, while others think Walter’s past suicide attempt should disqualify him, no matter what.

The main issues that certain people on the committee have with Janet are that she’s the oldest candidate, she has no family members, she’s ambivalent about getting an organ transplant, and one of the people on the committee describes Janet as a “bitch.” This derogatory name calling gets Dr. Boxer very irritated because he thinks that the committee’s decision should not be based on which patient has the nicest personality. Although she is wealthy, Janet has not hinted that she’s willing to bribe the hospital so that she can get the transplant, and it’s unlikely that she would ever make that unethical offer.

Trip has been unconscious since he was brought to the hospital, so no one in the hospital really knows what he has to say for himself about getting a heart transplant. But someone who knows Trip very well was hospitalized at the same time as Trip was: his girlfriend Holly Matson (played by Elizabeth Masucci), who has mysterious lacerations and bruises on her body. Because Holly is awake and able to talk, Dr. Taylor has an empathetic conversation with Holly to find out if Trip was using drugs before having his heart attack and to find out why Holly is physically injured. Holly seems terrified to say how she got her injuries, but she tells Dr. Taylor some important information that could affect how the committee members will vote.

The committee’s debate over who should get the heart transplant comes with some intriguing twists and turns. Many details, including Trip’s toxicology test results, are revealed that can sway people’s decisions. And each person on the committee brings personal agendas and biases. However, not much backstory is given on these characters because the movie’s main focus is on what these characters do in 2014 and 2021.

There’s an early scene in 2014, when Dr. Taylor is talking to a hospital colleague, who knows that Dr. Taylor’s mother is a well-known plastic surgeon. When the colleague asks Dr. Taylor why she didn’t become a plastic surgeon too, Dr. Taylor says she wanted to become an organ transplant surgeon because “I watched a friend from college die, waiting for a heart [transplant].” It’s implied that this tragic personal experience influences how Dr. Taylor thinks and acts on the committee.

What’s less interesting about “The God Committee” is the time spent in the 2021 scenes on Dr. Boxer’s lab experiments for X-Origins. It’s not spoiler information to say that one of the results of these experiments is that he discovers that a pig’s heart can be successfully transplanted into a human. Considering that this type of transplant is not medically possible in 2021, it gives “The God Committee” a science fiction tone that the movie doesn’t need.

There’s a lot more that’s revealed in the 2021 scenes about what happened to Dr. Boxer and Dr. Taylor since they stopped working together at the hospital. They are both still living in New York City in 2021, so there are scenes where they cross paths again. The decision that the committee made about which patient got Eli Gurny’s donated heart has ripple effects that have continued into 2021 and beyond. There’s a plot development in the 2021 part of the movie that’s a little bit like a soap opera, but it would be entirely plausible in real life.

If the “God Committee” had left out all the sci-fi medical experiments, it would have been a much better movie. It could easily stand on its own as an engaging medical drama, solely based on the dilemmas faced by the committee in deciding which patient should get Eli Gurny’s donated heart. Since it’s the main plot of the film and because all the principal cast members give very good performances, any other flaws of the movie are overshadowed by these assets.

No matter what scientific and technological advances there will be health care, “The God Committee” takes a fascinating and sometime disturbing look at the human foibles that are inevitable when human beings make medical decisions. Needless to say, socioeconomic factors are also directly related to what type of health care an individual receives. But the movie’s intention is to make people think more about which medical professionals get to make life-or-death decisions for organ transplants and how much power these people should really have.

Vertical Entertainment released “The God Committee” in select U.S. cinemas, digital and VOD on July 2, 2021.