When you actually view a documentary, there's always some sort of story being told or a final result. Well, if you thought this documentary, in which the purpose of its creation was for the director to get to know Martin Shkreli better as a person, would follow through on it's promise then it actually didn't. If he specifically said it was to go inside the world of Martin Shkreli, then it kinda does that. What do I mean by that?
Well, the documentary begins by re-introducing us to what got Martin in the spotlight in the first place - being the Daraprim scandal - before going very briefly on his origins. Interestingly enough, Brent goes to Albania - specifically Shkrel, Albania because there's where Martin's 'tribe' is from - and interviews at least 2 random Albanians on Martin Shkreli. They basically state, "All the bad things were made up. Capitalism is very hard, but he remains one of the good guys. In our opinion, Martin Shkreli represents the name Shkreli with a lot of dignity." That's really it. Brent had all the time in the world to interview other Albanians but stopped at just those random guys.
He flies back to NYC and does rent out an apartment unit in the same building as Martin. Eventually, Brent starts getting involved in Martin's world by calling several times on livestream, recording his livestreams, saving different news articles where Martin is involved, his [Martin's] tweets and FB posts pinned up in a really weird investigation board. He also is around where Martin is IRL, essentially coming across as a stalker at points. He attends the #DaddyWillSaveUs art event hosted by Milo Yiannopolous. Funny enough is when the documentary gets to that part where Milo is interviewed and he asks Brent if he liked the art, he [Brent] outright says no and Milo's shocked. It's great.
Throughout the documentary, there's also interviews interspliced with professionals who get to the meat of the problem - which I do agree with - which is the health care system. As discussed before, there are no laws regulating the price gouges that made Martin so famous. Even though he went to prison for something completely different, Martin being used as a scapegoat does not fix the actual problem. In fact, other Martin Shkrelis can just pop in the industry and continue doing what he was doing, but claim that they aren't as bad. It leads to an interview with a daraprim patient named Patrick, who is currently in remission (or is during the timing of the documentary). He even goes into detail in his interview that when he went with a refill for daraprim, the pharmacy outright stated no and told him it would cost him $30k a month just to have his supply. He also reached out to his insurance company and even they said no, which led him to contacting Martin on Reddit when he was doing his AMA. Things got squared away and he was given a 10 day supply of daraprim,
but he never stated if this would be for life. This was my gripe about the documentary. Does that mean that what Martin stated about people who couldn't afford the medication are given it for free is true or false? The question remains unanswered.
The documentary also details the women who were involved with Martin Shkreli. Even the woman who wrote the original post about going on a tinder date with him, Jacklyn Collier, is featured during this segment too. Lauren Hayden is also included and, hilariously enough, it turns out this woman is actually a lot crazier than what I originally stated. When Brent found her in California, in which he was dumb enough to not censor the address of her neighbors, the neighbors had a bunch of signs made just for her because she kept fighting with them/giving them the finger and doing all kinds of obscene gestures over their newly built fence. She honestly looks super deranged in
some of the pictures and it's great.
Anyway, all she does is just talk about her little romance with Martin - still lying about being involved with him on and off for a year - when she was really moved in with him for a week. She also mentions her story she shared on reddit about them finding the probability of getting in the same taxi twice in NYC and it was the most nerdy date she had ever been. Then, even weirder is she even states at the end of the documentary that she's a bigger danger to society than Martin is, finishing off that sentence with a fake laugh.
(Clip)
The documentary does end on a pretty somber note, assuming anyone watching is one of Martin's friends or his fans, when the inevitable happens. What does bug me is something that Billy the Fridge says, "If you don't have a fraud by 35, you're not even trying." Is this his weird way of saying if you haven't made a mistake at 35 then you haven't lived? I don't know. The quote was super questionable similar to how the documentary was presented.
marketrealist.com
