Anesthesia

Anesthesia follows Walter Zarrow, a beloved Columbia University philosophy professor who is attacked on a snowy New York street. The story moves back through the days before the attack and follows the people tied to it. They include Walter’s worried son, a troubled student, a lonely couple, an alcoholic mother, two teenagers, and a drug addict. The film has a dark, serious tone, but it also looks for small acts of care inside a city full of pain.

The film’s clearest social message targets modern life instead of a political group. Sophie says that phones, money, careers, and shallow talk have made people lonely, while Walter’s final lecture links capitalism, technology, science, and the loss of religious belief to a search for meaning. These ideas appear in several talks, but they support the film’s larger concern with despair and escape. The characters numb themselves with drugs, alcohol, sex, phones, work, or philosophy, and the film asks whether human connection can still save them.