SMU alum's film on Anna Nicole Smith's doctor opens in Dallas County theaters Oct. 29

Geenah Krisht was a freshman at SMU in the fall of 2011 when she moved into Boaz Hall with a Sony Handycam and started filming the students around her. She cut the footage into reality TV-style episodes and held small screenings in the dorm common area. "I would edit the footage together and host little screenings," Krisht said. "It was my way of bringing everyone around me together."

Fifteen years later, Krisht produced "Trust Me, I'm a Doctor," which opened in theaters on Oct. 16. The film stars Kal Penn, Linda Hamilton and Abbie Cornish. It plays in Dallas County theaters from Oct. 29 through Nov. 4. Krisht returned to Dallas for a screening at the Texas Theatre.

Krisht grew up in Arkansas making home movies of her family and travels. At SMU she pursued degrees in film and journalism while interning at Dreamfly Productions, a Dallas company. She advanced from production assistant to producer there, working on reality TV pilots, commercials and sports talk shows, including "Inside the Huddle," taped at the House of Blues, and "The Fame," shot at The Rustic. "That environment taught me how to work quickly, under pressure and on tight budgets," Krisht said. "Those are lessons I still use on every set."

A producer seminar taught by production attorney Sally Helppie showed Krisht that she gravitated toward the contracts, logistics and legal work that many filmmakers avoid. "I realized I naturally lived in that lane," she said.

Four SMU graduates worked on the film: Krisht, director and screenwriter Thane Economou, and producers Ryan Hawkins and Rebecca Case. Krisht met Hawkins during freshman year, and the two have produced projects together for more than a decade. "Ryan and I have such a deep creative shorthand at this point," Krisht said. "When you've known someone since the dorm era, you can skip the small talk and get straight to the problem."

The film's connection to Dallas runs deeper than the cast list. Dr. Sandeep Kapoor, the physician at the center of the story, was Hawkins' doctor. A routine appointment became a feature film. Krisht also line-produced "1985," Yen Tan's Dallas-shot film that premiered at SXSW in 2018. "Dallas is not simply where I started," Krisht said. "It's where I learned what good collaboration looks like."

In the film, Penn plays Kapoor, who was implicated in the 2007 death of his patient Anna Nicole Smith, played by Cornish. Hamilton plays attorney Ellyn Garofalo. Kapoor faces a drug conspiracy trial while paparazzi camp outside his office, police raid his home, his journals leak, and his sexuality becomes public. The film spans 1997 to 2007. Kapoor was acquitted.

"The courtroom and the tragedy, we kept those strictly grounded. We never played those for laughs," Krisht said. The humor, she said, comes from the chaos around Kapoor outside the trial. "There's a point where the chaos becomes so total that you just kind of have to laugh," Krisht said. "That's where the comedy lives."

The film draws on Kapoor's self-published memoir, which Krisht described as reading "much like a personal diary." Economou cross-referenced court recordings to verify what appeared on screen. "We had a legal and ethical responsibility to build a well-rounded perspective," Krisht said. "The memoir gave us the heartbeat. But [Economou] went back through court recordings, cross-referenced sources and made sure what we were putting on screen was accurate."

Krisht founded her production company, Good Good Films, in 2023. "He's an Indian man," Krisht said of Kapoor. "His story could have been brushed under the rug if he didn't tell it himself." When Krisht visits Dallas, she eats breakfast tacos at Rusty Taco and drinks coffee at Union Coffee. "Trust Me, I'm a Doctor" plays in area theaters from Oct. 29 through Nov. 4.