Stolen Time

Not Rated • Theaters

Stolen Time is a new documentary that could reignite a much needed discussion about the neglect and abuse of elderly people in long-term care facilities. In the film, nursing home employees, a social worker, an investigator, and others report their experiences and findings. But at the center of almost every scene is Melissa Miller, a partner at a Toronto personal injury law firm and the lead attorney representing several Canadian families suing two large nursing home corporations for damages stemming from the alleged abuse and wrongful deaths of their loved ones. With significant screen time given to Miller discussing her personal and legal challenges, the film often feels more like a documentary about Miller than the victims she represents.

In the film, Miller holds conferences with clients, participates in public protests, explains how her tough childhood prepared her to be a tough lawyer, and talks shop with clerks and other staff. She says her main hurdle is convincing a judge to allow her firm to combine a “few hundred” complaints into a single mass tort case: Suing one nursing home at a time would overwhelm her law firm’s resources and might permit access only to that facility’s records rather than the parent corporation’s potentially more damning internal documents. What “terrifies” Miller, though? She says it’s figuring out how to “corral the emotions” of client-families into a successful “distilled legal theory” or strategy.

The documentary is slow to terrify viewers about the conditions inside some nursing homes. Miller lists clients’ common complaints: “dehydration, malnutrition, injuries, and misdiagnoses.” All serious, but evidence remains scarce for much of the film. For example, one of the few video clips shows “subtle verbal abuse” by a nurse—who’s not inattentive but is speaking (not yelling) firmly with a patient. The clip hardly makes Miller’s case.

It’s not until later scenes that the film finally reveals dreadful imagery. Miller displays pictures she says are of nursing home residents’ broken teeth, tongue injuries, and dentures covered in bacterial growths. A dental hygienist, with her face hidden from the camera, claims the lack of oral care in nursing homes is systemic. Another series of photos shows a fist-sized hole in an elderly woman’s backside that she suffered with for more than a year before she died.

Who’s responsible? Understaffing, long hours, and poor pay sometimes lead to frustrated caregivers mistreating patients. But Miller primarily blames corporations operating nursing homes with a business model that prioritizes profits, resulting in underfunding’s multiple woes. She also says government-run nursing homes often don’t receive adequate financial support.

Despite its salient points, Stolen Time fails to consider two things. No one in the film connects inhumane treatment at elder-care facilities to Canada’s euthanasia rules, which a 2022 AP article describes as “arguably the world’s most permissive.” Does abuse push the elderly to assisted suicide? Also, should we hail personal injury lawyers, who strike contingency-fee gold when caregiving goes bad, as the champions of better healthcare? As the film closes, a client who settled out of court tells Miller, “The best thing which came out of the whole thing is that I chose you.” The client’s words aren’t indecorous, but the film’s ending on a sales pitch is.