Jason Etter

Question: Has anyone tried to really find out what era it was to have taken place in? The Apprentice thing blares obvious, almost intentional. The rest of the comments about the monitor in the hospital and stuff also seem to date the time period. The bigger items that make it seem like the 70's or early 80's are the cars and the phone that Frank has which is very 70's/80's at best. In 2004 hospitals are so far advanced in every part of the country. I believe things like monitors tied into nurses stations and alerts not being able to be turned off locally within it notifying someone can't happen. That has been the case for some time.

Jason Etter

Chosen answer: It takes place in modern times. The hospital room is in a smaller hospital or in a wing specifically for people who need assistance living, so there's no need for all of the extra equipment found in an ICU or ER hospital room. The screens are all latest-technology and can't be more than 5 years old.

Answer: The film's sets from the cars, corded telephones (not even cordless landlines), and women's dress and hair styles, point to a 70s-80s time frame, but the Hill-Rom hospital bed in Maggie's rehab hospital is probably top of the line 2004 (when the movie was filmed) with built in alarms which were the envy of this author's hospital unit, which was still primarily fitted with the electric, alarm-less, air-less, adjustable foam mattress style beds which would have been more fitting for the setting of the movie. Given the outside-of-the-hospital setting, it would seem logically set around the time of the 1976 New Jersey Karen Quinlan case, and the 1980 Texas court right to "reject medical treatment" (https://doi.org/10.1080/08998280.1995.11929931). In other words, the movie makes a point of a patient's rights regarding treatment, but it would have been much nicer if they'd dated the setting.

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