There are many sad and sorry stories about caregivers being given the runaround by health insurance companies whose goal is making money, not helping patients. A Monster with a Thousand Heads revolves around an ordinary woman whose husband is dying and needs an expensive drug in order to survive. When she finds out that their insurance company will not cover the treatment, her righteous indignation is aroused, along with a zeal to move beyond her feelings of helplessness.
Sonia Bonet (Jana Raluy) decides to visit the offices of the Alta Salud company and is treated shamefully by a hostile receptionist who will not give her an appointment to see the doctor (Hugo Albores) assigned to her husband's case. Accompanied by her teenage son Dario (Sebastián Aguirre), she follows him home after she sees him leaving the office to avoid her. When he claims that nothing can be done over the weekend and orders her out of his house, Sonia turns to a last desperate attempt to get what she wants by pulling a gun out of her purse and using it to get the drug. Her mission compels her to take two corporate hostages (Emilio Echaverria and Daniel Giménez Cacho) and a shareholder (Veronica Falcón).
A Monster with a Thousand Heads is Uruguay-born and Mexico-based director Rodrigo Plá's fourth film. It is based on a novel by Laura Santullo who also wrote the screenplay. This is an engrossing and taut drama that ought to touch many men and women with its critical portrait of corporate malfeasance in the health insurance business. Sonia is a very sympathetic character, which makes it possible for us to empathize with her plight and her determination to save her husband's life, no matter what it takes. This tense film raises many important ethical questions about greed, incivility, lying, cover-ups, and indifference to human suffering.