On October 30, 2015, in Bucharest, Romania, the metal band Goodbye to Gravity performs a concert at a club called Colectiv. Pyrotechnics cause a fire to break out, quickly engulfing the club, resulting in the immediate deaths of 27 people and injuring 180. Over the following months, an additional 37 victims die, partially due to the lack of proper healthcare at public hospitals.
Journalists begin investigating the mismanagement of healthcare by public hospitals after sources inform them that the disinfectants used are diluted. Testing confirms this, and the journalists subsequently publish a hard-hitting story about the supplier, Hexi Pharma, and how it falsified documentation for the supplied disinfectants. The story also reveals that the government failed to properly verify the supplier and its products. The Minister of Health, Patriciu Achimaș-Cadariu [ro], orders an investigation. When Cătălin Tolontan, a journalist from the Gazette, goes on TV to discuss the investigation, the Minister of Health dismisses the journalist's insistence for facts and evidence, stating that governmental testing shows the disinfectant solutions are 95 percent effective.
The journalists push further and find a source that confirms the intelligence service has known for years that bacterial infections were killing people but did nothing. The Gazette publishes the story, and mass protests continue over the corruption and lack of proper healthcare protection. Consequently, the Minister of Health resigns, and a criminal investigation begins against the CEO of Hexi Pharma, Dan Condrea [ro]. The government announces at a press conference that they have tested the Hexi Pharma products and found the solutions were all diluted. Tolontan asks about the 95 percent effectiveness previously claimed by the Ministry of Health, and the Ministry responds by refusing to comment on their previous claim. Shortly after, Condrea is killed in a car crash.
Later, The Gazette obtains a video of a patient in a hospital with maggots festering in their wound. Their source, a frustrated doctor, explains that patient deaths resulting from diluted disinfectants or inadequate blood transfusion services continue unabated even after the Social Democratic governmental ousting in late 2015. Vlad Voiculescu, the new Minister of Health, meets with the doctor, and she details how hospital management avoided the problems and did nothing while patients were dying. She also discusses how hospitals treat patients inhumanely, as well as how bribes are arranged between hospital managers and doctors.
Voiculescu concludes that there isn't a single unit throughout the public hospitals that isn't affected by profound administrative corruption. He learns that he cannot fire the corrupt hospital managers currently in place, many of whom bribed their way into their positions, so he demands that extremely strict regulations for any new hospital managers be introduced. He begins to realize that the whole system is rotten and that eradicating corruption would entail "firing everyone." When he withdraws funding from a lung transplant unit, deeming it dangerous, he becomes the target of a press campaign led by Mayor of BucharestGabriela Firea, who accuses him of wasting taxpayer money on transporting patients to Vienna, even though the unit in Bucharest is supposedly fully accredited to perform the same operation. A professor privately admits to Voiculescu that the unit should not have been accredited and it was done under political pressure, but begs Voiculescu not to speak about this in public to avoid a scandal that could ruin the reputation of the institute.
Election day arrives, and the Social Democrats sweep the election, obtaining the most votes. At The Gazette, Tolontan's colleague reveals she had an off-the-record conversation with someone who warns the journalists about their and their families' safety. Later on, the public hospital appoints a manager who is unqualified and legally unable to manage a hospital.
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, Collective holds an approval rating of 99% based on 130 reviews, with an average rating of 9/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "Collective presents a darkly effective overview of the cycle of political corruption and public cynicism that takes hold when government abrogates its responsibility to the people."[7]Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 95 out of 100, based on 24 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[8]
Writing for the Los Angeles Times, Justin Chang called the film "a gripping, despairing exposé of institutional injustice".[5] Jay Weissberg of Variety called it "a documentary for our times, deserving of widespread exposure".[9]Manohla Dargis of New York Times wrote that the film "sketches out an honest, affecting, somewhat old-fashioned utopian example of what it takes to make the world better, or at least a little less awful."[10]
