What if a pill could make you rich and powerful?
Why it is hard sci-fi
A nootropic called NZT-48 turns its user into a near-perfect cognitive performer. The film commits to consequences. Tolerance, withdrawal, organ damage, supply control by the manufacturer, and a black market run by a chemist who wants to titrate users into dependence. The fantasy of unlimited cognition is shown with the full pharmacological tail attached.
Science inside it
Pharmacology of stimulants and nootropics, dose-response and tolerance, withdrawal symptoms with hard endpoints, and the legal-economic structure of a controlled substance. The 100 percent of your brain claim is famously wrong, and the film gestures at it then moves on to the much more interesting consequences of getting closer to it.