Susan Wheeler (Lauren Ambrose) is a promising young med student with a last name that carries the legacy of her grandfather’s illustrious career at Memorial Hospital. Out the gate, she has to prove herself worthy. Fortunately, she has caught the eye of Dr. Michael Bellows (Steven Pasquale), who is interested both in her medical career and her, personally. While on her first rotation at the hospital, she encounters a comatose patient, a woman she used to see frequently at her local pool and she is confused as to why a seemingly perfectly healthy young woman is in a coma. This causes her to raise more questions and begin researching the many other patients in the hospital who have strangely befallen the same fate. When odd things start to happen, such as the sudden firing of a nurse who helped her access these files or the expulsion of her roommate from med school, who also copied files for her, Susan starts to get a bit paranoid that perhaps she has stumbled on to something bigger and more insidious than she had imagined, especially after she sees more healthy young patients experience the same fate.

Susan goes to her mentor, Professor Hillside (Richard Dreyfuss), who tells her to focus on school. She then enlists the help of Dr. Bellows so that she can tour the Jefferson, a long-term facility that cares for comatose patients, especially when she discovers that all of the comatose patients at Memorial end up here. While it appears to be pristine, things are not quite as they appear and she is horrified to learn that most of what they display to the public is a ruse. When she starts to question things even more, Memorial’s administration gets involved to oust her from school, but Dr. Howard Stark (James Woods), the Chief of Staff, steps in as she had previously impressed him. It seems she has some powerful allies, even as the administration and Dr. Agnetta Lindquist (Geena Davis), who unbeknownst to her is battling with Susan for the affections of Dr. Bellows, are seeking to silence her - maybe permanently.

As things escalate and Susan finds herself being stalked, even attacked and watched at every turn, she realizes that Jefferson and Memorial have made a sinister pact, all the while professing it to be for the good of the masses. Can Susan expose the truth before she, too, falls victim to the very system she is fighting?

COMA originally aired as a mini-series and clocks in around 2.5 hours. There are no special features and it’s very clear when the show cut to commercial break as the pauses are pretty obvious. However, the acting is well done and there are a number of big names here, including Ellen Burstyn, who effectively plays the decidedly cold-hearted supervisor of Jefferson. There’s one character that seemed to be in the film just to throw viewers off, as he torments Susan. I see the point of him being there, but the connection between him and the bigger picture wasn’t all that obvious. Regardless, the plotline is interesting.

Overall, COMA is worth a rent if you enjoy medical thrillers, but it’s not really worth a purchase as you won’t watch it again and again.