The good part of the new Netflix movie “Purple Hearts” is that it puts an important spotlight on the huge problem in this country for people who need medicine to survive but cannot afford it because their insurance companies will not pay for what they need and the fact that pharmaceutical companies charge exorbitant amounts for essential medicine.

Cassie, played by Sophia Carson is a 20 something bartender and singer who works at a bar that is near a military base. She finds out that she has type 1 Diabetes but like so many others, cannot afford to buy the insulin. From a chance meeting at a bar, Cassie meets Luke, played by Nicholas Galitzine who is a soldier about to return to Iraq. At first they dislike each other, but soon they both realize that if they got married, due to Army benefits, both of their financial problems might be correctable. Their relationship predictably does grow over time, leading to a love story and to some other complications.

Unfortunately for the rest of this movie, there are too TV-movie-soap-opera-subplots that make this entire production look like it should have been a Lifetime TV movie and not a film in theaters or even on Netflix. For this main reason the very low 35% Rotten Tomatoes are understandable, with my rating around 50% mainly for the message of addressing the outrageous cost of buying medicine in this country. Due to the TV-movie aspects, I cannot recommend this film.