Undetectable.

Undetectable * Directed by Jay Corcoran * PBS * Premieres October 19, 9 P.M. Eastern (Check local listings)

Think the latest drugs can just make AIDS go away? A new film depicts the harsh realities of highly active antiretroviral therapy 

They were nothing less than pills of hope. The launch of protease inhibitors--part of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART)--altered the course of HIV treatment, transforming AIDS, for many, from a terminal into a chronic illness. But that's far from the full story--as Jay Corcoran's new documentary, Undetectable, makes clear.

Undetectable is an honest, gripping portrayal of the hearts and minds of six people with HIV. Filming for three years, Corcoran was able to capture the complex ways in which the new drugs affect people's health. More important, he's able to show the frustration and emotional strain people feel when their life--or their loved one's--doesn't become the healthy success story they expected it to be.

Through Corcoran's compassionate lens we watch the distress of housewife Carole Miselman, 50, upon learning that her latest drug regimen is not having any effect on her viral load. We are part of 48-year-old Belynda Dunn's struggle with whether to go on HAART. "I feel like I just signed my life away," says the churchgoing grandmother on the day she tells the doctor yes. Months later, she stops taking her pills. Her viral load is now undetectable, but she felt sicker on the drugs than off them.

We see the tired, sad eyes of nuclear technician Joe Pennell, 37, as he describes how he's worked his way through his treatment options. "People involved with people on protease inhibitors see such drastic improvement and they think that's that," Pennell explains as he discusses his partner, Bill. "It's going to be real hard when the situation changes." And it does.

We witness the exhaustion of 38-year-old Matilde Garcia, a recovering heroin addict who must keep track of her own drug regimen while also taking care of her HIV-positive husband and her five children, the youngest of whom also has HIV. We are uplifted by David Brudnoy, 57, a conservative gay talk-show host and author, for whom the promise of these drugs has been realized. And we are saddened by the unraveling of the life of 44-year-old Nicaraguan Anibal Castaneda, a recovering IV drug user whose success on antiretroviral drugs can't rival an inner despair that draws him back to his heroin addiction.

Through these individuals Corcoran depicts the reality behind the medical choices now available to many in the United States two decades into the AIDS pandemic. And if ultimately Undetectable is less about the newest AIDS drugs and more about what it means to live--and die--with HIV, that's because it's more like life.

Rochman is editor at large for HIV Plus.