Nelson stars in the film with Sam Waterston, Kristen Stewart, Glenn Close, Gretchen Mol, and Corey Stoll.

The experience of Zarrow, Sam, Joe, and Zarrow's assailant ripple quickly out to include the connected lives of a housewife struggling with alcoholism, a stoner teen desperate to lose his virginity, a brilliant but failed writer fighting addiction, two parents confronting the prospect of terminal illness, and a brilliant grad student who harms herself to feel alive.

The website's critics consensus reads: "Anesthesia's incredible cast is wasted on a sloppily-assembled drama whose grand ambitions are undermined by a flawed screenplay.

The woebegone despair that is ever-present in Nelson’s face on screen also suffuses the best of his writing here as well as in his direction of Stewart, with whom he joins forces very dynamically.

"[11] John DeFore of The Hollywood Reporter wrote: "Any viewer entering the film without wanting to hug Waterston will have a crush by the picture's end, with the actor perfectly embodying a flavor of learned humanism that carries us through a couple of more abstractly angst discussions of society's decay.