A still from 'Relationship to Patient.'
Watching the minutely observed Relationship to Patient, it’s hard to believe this is director Caroline Creaghead’s first film. The pace is unrushed, confident; the content meditative, honest. Set in a hospital, largely taking place at the bedside of a patient in the ICU, the film feels more real than the blood and chaos of any mainstream hospital drama.
It will be shown as part of a group of shorts under the heading “Wisconsin’s Own Short Stories,” April 6 at the Bartell Theatre.
Creaghead, who lived in Wisconsin from ages 4-12, returned to attend UW-Madison, where she majored in communication arts-radio/television/film and acted in Atlas Improv. After college she moved to New York City, where she interned at The Colbert Report and The Onion and fell into booking comedy acts. “It turns out I have an eye for spotting talent, and that is a good asset,” she says. Ultimately she decided to move to L.A. and re-focus on film.
Relationship to Patient is based on a real event in Creaghead’s life, when a former boyfriend got back in touch with her only to reveal that he had a medical issue. “I was highly skeptical,” she says, but ultimately told him, “Let me know if you need any help.” Soon she was part of a circle of friends/caregivers who confided, “He’s way worse than he’s telling you.”
That affection and awkwardness and ambivalence come through in the delicate balance depicted in Relationship to Patient.
So does Creaghead’s knack for spotting talent. The two main characters, Claudia (Eleanore Pienta) and Adrian (H. Jon Benjamin) quietly negotiate the delicate terrain of their relationship amid the mostly unspoken seriousness of Adrian’s condition.
Creaghead says that in trying to process her own experience, she first wrote a feature-length screenplay but soon realized “I don’t have the resources for a feature.”
She then asked herself, what is the kernel that tells the story? The 13-minute version she came up with is “tragic, but at times deeply funny.”
The short was filmed in an actual L.A. hospital that has a “simulation center,” an area with no patients devoted just to training. This was a find because “hospital sets in L.A. look like sets,” Creaghead says. Even renting the center would have broken her budget, but in part because it was the same hospital her friend had been treated in, she was ultimately given a break on the cost — if she could shoot one particular weekend. The film was shot entirely on location during those two days.
“The short has been received really well,” says Creaghead. “It showcases that I do know how to write, and can be a calling card to get other opportunities.” Returning to the longer feature script, she says, is “not out of the question.”
See our other 2025 Wisconsin's Own profiles here.
[Editor's note: this article has been updated to clarify that the hospital used for filming was the one Creaghead's friend was treated at.]
