For several years now, Bill Murray (“The French Dispatch”) has been a good luck charm for director Wes Anderson, a perennial member of his troupe, but he’s a notoriously hard get. You need a killer script and an “in” to get him to read it. And well, it seems that comedian turned director Aziz Ansari has secured both. After directing several episodes of his Netflix series, “Master Of None,” including all of season three, he’ll make his feature film debut for Searchlight Pictures while taking a role alongside Murray, the studio just announced.
Ansari will also write the script based on the non-fiction book “Being Mortal: Medicine & What Matters In The End” authored by practicing surgeon Atul Gawande.
The project will focus on when a medical professional should extend the life of patients and when to recommend ending it. Quality of life is a considerable debate, as many countries have legalized assisted suicide when terminal patients or those looking at years of suffering attempt to decide their fate. IIt’s still a heated topic in the United States, where “freedom” concerning one’s medical care can be limited depending on what state you reside in.
Here is the synopsis of “Being Mortal” from the author’s official website:
Medicine has triumphed in modern times, transforming birth, injury, and infectious disease from harrowing to manageable. But in the inevitable condition of aging and death, the goals of medicine seem too frequently to run counter to the interest of the human spirit. Nursing homes, preoccupied with safety, pin patients into railed beds and wheelchairs. Hospitals isolate the dying, checking for vital signs long after the goals of cure have become moot. Doctors, committed to extending life, continue to carry out devastating procedures that, in the end, extend suffering. Gawande, a practicing surgeon, addresses hispprofession’s ultimate limitation, arguing that quality of life is the desired goal for patients and families. Gawande offers examples of freer, more socially fulfilling models for assisting the infirm and dependent elderly, and he explores the varieties of hospice care to demonstrate that apperson’s last weeks or months may be rich and dignified.
Is it ethical to keep patients alive if they’re in constant pain for the rest of their lives or recommend surgeries that can inflame that pain? It’s possible the film could tackle very controversial but essential questions concerning the right to end life, a choice usually made between doctors, patients, and family members.
The untitled pic is eyeing a released date sometime in 2023.